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Leidenheimer Baking Company

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Leidenheimer Baking Company
Company typeBakery
Founded1896
FounderGeorge Leidenheimer
Headquarters
New Orleans, Louisiana
,
United States
Loaves of Leidenheimer's bread at the Oak Street Po'Boy Festival 2011

Leidenheimer Baking Company is a bakery in New Orleans. It was started in 1896 by George Leidenheimer, an immigrant from Deidesheim, Germany. Initially located on Dryades Street, it moved in 1904 to Simon Bolivar Avenue, where it continues in business as the city's largest and best-known maker of po'boy bread,[1][2][3][4] a fiercely competitive niche.[5][6] Leidenheimer bought out its largest competitor, Reising's Sunrise, in the early 1990s, and still manufactures products under the Reising name. It bought another competitor, Angelo Gendusa, in the 2000s.[7][8]

The bakery was forced to close for a short time after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In the interim, Leidenheimer produced its bread in a Chicago bakery.[9][10] In recent years, Leidenheimer has made the round, seeded bread for the muffuletta sandwich at New Orleans' Central Grocery (the former baker, United Bakery, did not reopen after Katrina).[7][11]

Leidenheimer Baking Company is one of the historic businesses in the Central City section of New Orleans. To mark the company's centennial in 1996, the artwork of Bunny Matthews, creator of the "Nint' Ward"-based cartoon characters "Vic and Nat'ly", was added to the bakery's delivery trucks.[7]

References

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  1. ^ "History". Leidenheimer.
  2. ^ Roahen, Sara (2008). Gumbo Tales. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 115. ISBN 9780393061673.
  3. ^ MacDonald, Brady (October 31, 2004). "Po' boy bliss in New Orleans". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. Retrieved June 14, 2012.
  4. ^ Powell, Mary Alice (November 4, 1987). "New Orleans Bread Fame Rises". Toledo Blade. p. 23. Retrieved June 14, 2012.
  5. ^ "Po-Boys". Retrieved April 30, 2012.
  6. ^ Garbarino, Steve (March 5, 2011). "The Crescent City's Greatest Po'boys". Wall Street Journal. p. D1. ProQuest 855034442.
  7. ^ a b c Roahen, Sara (July 20, 2006). "Katherine & Sandy Whann: Leidenheimer Baking Company". Southern Foodways Alliance. Retrieved June 14, 2012. The unedited version of this interview is available here Archived 2011-05-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ Tucker, Susan; Starr, S. Frederick (2009). New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 43–44. ISBN 978-1-60473-127-9. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  9. ^ Phillips, Valerie (August 23, 2006). "Rebuilding New Orleans, a meal at a time". Deseret News. ProQuest 351505850. Everyone seems to agree that it's the bread that makes a true "po' boy" sandwich -- a French bread known for being crispy on the outside so that it can hold up to the filling, with a light, airy interior. And a lot of that bread is made by G.H. Leidenheimer Baking Co. Copy available here (subscription required)
  10. ^ Kolb, Carolyn (May 1, 2006). "Upper Crust: The rise and survival of Leidenheimer". New Orleans Magazine. Vol. 40, no. 7. ProQuest 206638452. We arranged for our operations manager to travel to Chicago and produce our product in a friend's bakery. Even the muffuletta loaves came out of the Chicago ovens, ready for olive salad and cold cuts. Copy available here (subscription required)
  11. ^ Edge, John T. (2007). Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South. Algonquin Books. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-56512-841-5. Excerpts available from Google Books.
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