‘IT MUST BE ITALIAN!’
‘A Christmas Story’ bread art on display at Mancini’s
Pittsburgh loves to celebrate the many artists, exhibition designers, filmmakers, performers, writers, poets, musicians and so on that call the Steel City home. There are also plenty of Western Pennsylvanians who practice a few less-discussed forms of self-expression — like, say, bread art. What exactly is bread art, you ask? Look no further than Mancini’s Bakery in the Strip District, which is currently displaying a giant piece of bread featuring elements ripped from the 1983 holiday classic “A Christmas Story.”
It contains an intricately re-created version of the film’s leg lamp, a Christmas tree with a gift underneath it and a pink, bread-toting bunny onesie with its face cut out for photo-ops. There’s even a slapped-on “FRAGILE” label in case there was any doubt that everything about this particular piece of bread art must be Italian in origin.
Pittsburghers have Nick Mancini Hartner, who owns the Mancini’s Strip District location, to thank for almost single-handedly baking this festive bread art. Hartner told the Post-Gazette last week that customers are “coming in just to see it this year,” which he attributed to his bread art becoming a mini social media sensation earlier this month and to folks’ clear enthusiasm for this recently established Mancini’s holiday tradition.
Hartner grew up in Windgap and now lives in Franklin Park. His mother, Mary Mancini, stills owns the original Mancini’s Bakery in McKees Rocks that opened in 1926. He took over the new Strip District store shortly after it began selling bread on Penn Avenue in 2002.
Back in the early 2000s, Hartner and his Strip District cohort would bake eyecatching bread art pieces “to grab some attention from people walking by.” Those extracurricular activities went by the wayside once business picked up until Hartner decided to construct a giant bread Christmas Tree during the height of pandemic-induced lockdowns in 2020.
“It kind of came to me as a way to interact with bread in a way that you can do it by yourself and can still get out of the house and do something,” he said.
That bread Christmas tree was such a hit that he ended up making an 8-feet-tall “Frosty the Doughman” for the 2021 holiday season. Hartner got even more ambitious last year by baking both a bread Santa Claus and a scene depicting the Grinch decorating a Christmas tree.
His Santa Claus and “A Christmas Story” designs made appearances at YaJagoff Media’s 2022 and 2023 Not Your Average Holiday Parades.
The bread art that’s front and center the second you walk through Mancini’s front door in the Strip District was Hartner’s love letter to one of his favorite Christmas movies on its 40th anniversary. He made it in McKees Rocks and said that it “has the most detail in it” of any piece he’s baked so far. Though it’s still technically edible, Hartner emphasized that his “A Christmas Story” bread art is long past its prime and not fit for consumption.
Most bread artists use dough made from water, salt and flour because it generally gives them more time before things get messy, according to Hartner. His “A Christmas Story”-inspired creation, however, was made with Mancini’s Italian bread dough. That left Hartner with only about 90 minutes to finish before it would inevitably start to collapse.
“I’m not a perfectionist,” he said. “It allows me to be a little aggressive, do something and let it go out to the world imperfectly.”
He originally wanted to prop a BB gun under the tree in honor of Ralphie Parker’s (Peter Billingsley) most-desired Christmas present, but he had to scrap that idea due to time constraints. Hartner never even considered doing anything with the film’s famous flagpole scene due to how difficult it is to carve faces into bread.
His most recent bread-art offering quickly went viral after it was unveiled via Facebook and Instagram on Dec. 1. If you thought that was it for 2023, Hartner teased that he’ll be revealing the holiday-themed bread art that will soon be installed at the McKees Rocks Mancini’s this Friday on the Heather Abraham-hosted KDKA-TV show “Talk Pittsburgh.”
Hartner was coy about what he may be cooking up for 2024, mostly because he has been known to change his mind fairly frequently prior to starting the baking process. He did, however, mention that two of his favorite Christmas movies happen to be 1989’s “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and 1990’s “Home Alone.”
While there’s plenty of holiday cheer to be derived from Hartner’s bread art, its primary goal is to entice more Western Pennsylvanians to check out Mancini’s. He said that the McKees Rocks bakery is “busier than ever” and hopes that Strip District residents and visitors will stop by to peruse their bread selection and enjoy his “A Christmas Story” confection.
“It’s an old tradition, but there are plenty of new products and varieties to try,” Hartner said. “Come in, say hi and do something different.”