“The Bread, My Sweet” may be the first film to star biscotti.
Technically, it stars Scott Baio, who plays Dominic Pyzola, a second-generation Italian-American corporate raider who is torn between running his biscotti bakery and climbing the corporate ladder.
But biscotti, specifically the ones Larry Lagattuta makes and sells in his Pittsburgh bakery, Enrico Biscotti Co., play a pivotal role.
The film (which opened late last year but is not currently playing in area theaters) centers on Dominic’s relationship with the elderly Italian couple: Bella (Rosemary Prinz) and Massimo (John Seitz) live in the apartment above the bakery. When Dominic discovers Bella has just six months to live, he quits his corporate job to focus on the bakery. He also tries to persuade Bella’s daughter, Lucca (Kristin Minter), to marry him–for as long as Bella lives–so her mother can die happy.
The film was shot at Enrico Biscotti Co., Lagattuta’s bakery in Pittsburgh. Lagattuta spent two days before shooting teaching Baio how to bake the crunchy, twice-baked Italian cookie. He and his staff of 15 also provided foodstyling expertise and catered three meals a day for the actors.
“It was amazing to watch a movie being made,” Lagattuta said during a recent telephone interview.
The downside: “I’m the captain of my ship. I didn’t like being told to get out of the way. You know, when bread has to come out of the oven, it has to come out of the oven, so there was some tension.”
Plus, the actors were filming in 105-degree heat but trying to make it look as though the story were set in winter.
“The Bread, My Sweet” is the first feature film written and directed by Lagattuta’s wife, Melissa Martin. The story is based partly on Lagattuta’s own life.
After 15 years of working at a corporate job he didn’t like, Lagattuta started baking with a Tuscan pastry chef for “stress release.” At the same time he befriended Gemma and Massimo, an Italian couple who lived in an apartment in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. In 1995 Lagattuta asked to rent the space below the couple to open Enrico Biscotti Co., a pasticceria, or Italian bakery, that sells cookies, cakes, tortes and pastries.
At work by 4:30 a.m., Lagattuta finds bliss when he’s working with dough and listening to classical music. “It’s absolutely the best job I’ve ever had,” Lagattuta says, the hubbub of customers at Enrico’s nearly drowning out his words.
The company makes 1,200 pounds of biscotti by hand every day. Lagattuta acknowledges that he could buy machinery that would extrude the biscotti, but he prefers to bake by hand the way Italian grandmothers before him have done it.
Lagattuta frequently asks Italian women to come into his kitchen and share their recipes so he can help keep traditional regional recipes alive. “It really is parochial. That’s the beauty of Italian cooking,” he says. He records and standardizes the measures on recipes that typically are memorized as “a pinch of this, a jab of that.”
“When somebody tells me my bakery smells just like their mother or grandmother’s house, I ask them, `Do the kids have your recipes?’ They say, `No.’ I tell them, `You know what? When you pass, these recipes will go with you.’
“They usually get misty-eyed and start to cry. That’s why I tell them to bring them to me. I will carry on the traditions. I’ve gotten the most amazing recipes and stories. … It’s amazing what people will tell you when they’re up to their elbows in dough.”
The company sells its 36 flavors of soft biscotti online at enricobiscotti.com.
An 8-ounce bag is $6. Flavors include anise-almond, apricot-hazelnut and cranberry-pistachio.
