• •
Even with that heritage, Buddy Gouger is emphatic about one thing: If the trans-fat ban ultimately targets his business, the Gouger family will be forced to move their bakery out of the city.
His hopes rest on the shoulders of City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski (D-6th dist.), who has heard similar laments from other neighborhood bakeries that regard the shortenings and margarines as key ingredients of their tasty treats.
On May 31, Krajewski introduced a proposed ordinance before City Council that would amend the Philadelphia City-wide Trans Fat Ban, which is slated to go into effect in two stages. This fall, eateries and a wide range of other food businesses no longer can fry foods in trans fats or serve margarine and similar spreads to patrons. In September 2008, the ban will be expanded to end the use of trans fats as a recipe ingredient. That’s the phase that gives local bakers the jitters.
Krajewski’s amendment would give them an exemption. Or, as it’s specifically worded, the reprieve would be for any establishment that makes and sells bakery products on the premises, or sells them at another location, as long as the baker has no more than three retail outlets in the city.
The exemption also would permit restaurants and diners to serve their pastry treats — but with a trans-fat notice clearly posted on menus.
The councilwoman’s district — which includes Mayfair, Holmesburg, Wissinoming, Tacony and Holme Circle — is home to some of the Northeast’s most well-known bakeries and diners. Krajewski will have the bakers testify before City Council’s Health and Human Services Committee, at a hearing sometime in September, so that members can see, hear and get a taste of how the ban would hinder those businesses.
"The bakeries are ninety-nine percent family owned and work all hours of the day and night," Krajewski said. "It’s just not fair. It’s discriminatory when Entenmann’s and Tastykake can use them. Someone has to look out for the little guy."
• •
Companies like Tastykake — a Philadelphia institution — have caught a break because the city ban doesn’t apply to prepackaged foods sold at eateries and stores.
Nancy Morozin, who co-owns the Dining Car restaurant with her sister Judy and brother Joey Morozin, wrote to Krajewski and asked her to come to the aid of independent bakers.
Morozin, whose diner, at 8826 Frankford Ave., is just three miles from Bensalem in Bucks County, isn’t merely afraid that her customers will simply drive to another bakery across the city line. She fears they’ll simply go through an adjacent parking lot to Pathmark.
"The main objective is that it’s not a level playing field. It doesn’t make any sense if what they’re saying is true," Morozin said, referring to the exemption given to big baking companies that sell prepackaged goods. The bakery at Pathmark brings in all the parts. The decorator puts it together and they can sell stuff out of their case. I’m a scratch baker, using quality ingredients and no additives or preservatives, making a healthier product than the next guy. . . . Our stuff tastes better, but not for long if the city has its way."
Judy Morozin is just as upset about the prospect of a trans-fat ban.
"Every recipe will be affected by it. It’s really disheartening," she said. "It’s a shame because it is so good — the Jewish apple cake, apple walnut cheese cake, jelly sticks — it’s all good."
Nancy Morozin has no plans to move out of the city. However, in this era of crime, changing neighborhoods and the cost of doing business in Philadelphia, the city administration is making it harder and harder for family-owned businesses to survive, she said.
The Gougers, on the other hand, will start packing if the second phase of the ban — the part that affects bakers — is enacted in about 14 months.
Buddy Gouger pointed to a photo of a wide brick sidewalk outside the Frankford Avenue shop and a grapevine that still winds along the side of the building. Back then, Gouger noted, customers came to the bakery by horse and buggy.
Back then, no one ever heard of trans fats, either. There were no nutritionists around blasting the stuff as artificial solids that clog arteries.
But where taste and the sanctity of recipes are concerned, it also seems to be regarded as a baker’s best friend.
"If things don’t work out, I’ll move out of the city. There aren’t many bakeries where I live," said Gouger, an Abington resident.
His father, George, vows to stand by his side.
"It would be the city’s loss," George Gouger said. "It’s annoying that people mooch in on your business but don’t know beans about it. A trans-fat ban would destroy your recipes. I hate like heck to mess with (the pound cake recipe)."
• •
While a substitution wouldn’t affect the texture of the sweet dough and cinnamon buns, the bakers say, it would change the taste.
"We use all-natural stuff, not artificial. The substitute may be more damaging," George Gouger said. "How can Tastykake get away with it? Our products are a lot fresher than theirs. They use preservatives."
Buddy Gouger also has concerns about what the ban would mean for Holmesburg Bakery’s wholesale market, selling its baked goods to restaurants and caterers.
"Our wholesale keeps us going during the summer," he said. "Why are they going to come to us? You can really taste the difference."
So how easy is it to find a substitute for baking aids like Crisco? Replacing trans fats is not an easy issue for bakers, said Brian Strouts, a spokesman for the American Institute of Baking.
AIB is a national technical resource that helps bakers work through issues or find solutions to business challenges. At issue with trans-fats bans is finding a healthful alternative, how that replacement performs in the baking process, and its taste, cost and shelf life.
"Fat in a baking product has a lot of different results in different products. It functions differently," Strouts said.
Differences in formulation and baking processes also may require bakers to find more than one shortening replacement, which increases costs, he added.
"From a health standpoint, most of the alternatives are based on palm oil. You are replacing trans fats with saturated fats," Strouts said. "From a replacement standpoint in a cake, you always could replace all-purpose shortening with an all liquid for a batter high in sugar and with high amounts of fat.
"Shortening needs to combine itself with the water in the batter. Just going with liquid oil is like an analogy of Italian dressing — you shake it up and it stays together for only so long before it separates," he said. "Cake batter is an emulsified system and will try to do the same thing. That could give a cake low volume and affect the textural aspects of the cake."
• •
Generations of Philadelphians have come to love the taste and texture that make pound cakes from Stock’s Bakery in Port Richmond, butter cakes from Holmesburg Bakery and Jewish apple cakes from the Dining Car a traditional part of family celebrations. If the special recipes don’t remain intact, say those who rely on them, it’s not likely that longtime devotees and Philadelphia transplants will continue to patronize the city’s independent bakers.
"Patrons think it stinks," Lee Kelly, who works at the Holmesburg Baptist Christian School, next to the bakery, said of the trans-fat hoopla.
Teachers at the school can’t get enough of the bakery’s cream doughnuts, she said.
"It’s really hurting the little guys. Why should customers be able to buy Entenmann’s and yet can’t come in here?" she asked.
Another customer, Tina Black, walked into the bakery on Thursday for a famous Holmesburg butter cake that she planned to send to her sister-in-law in Florida.
"She calls and says, ‘Please send me some butter cake!’" Black said.
The Mayfair resident thinks City Council is overstepping its boundaries with a trans-fat ban. In her mind, let the people have their cake and eat it too.
"Leave it up to the bakery to advertise. Put a sign up that says, ‘We use trans fats.’ Government doesn’t have the right to tell you how to cook," Black said.
You won’t hear any disagreement from Councilwoman Krajewski.
"I don’t feel we should have to legislate what people eat. Are we going to ban soft pretzels next?" said the council veteran. "With all that’s going on in the city, there is more important business to take care of than telling people what to eat." ••
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com