Bridgeton was famous for tomatoes. There were two or three canneries located on the “Cohansey Crick” the river that ran through the center of town. I believe the tomato crop came in a three-week wave. Trucks, laden with tall pyramids of baskets of tomatoes, lined up to enter the packing plants. At the height of delivery season the line of trucks would stretch from the canneries’ side streets, onto the main street through town and out onto the highway. The line crept forward as each truck was unloaded. At the height of the traffic jam, a truck could be starting and stopping for two days before he got to unload. Drivers slept in their truck and ate the sandwiches delivered by their families. Kool-aid stands sprouted along the route manned by enterprising kids.
Pop bought his tomatoes from a local packer. He would call the cannery owner directly and as ask for a year’s supply of tomatoes that were packed during the exact week he specified, the week when the tomato crop would be at the apex of flavor.
Pop did not know the owner of the packer of locally-grown peas. But he did learn the date codes that went on the cartons of canned peas and specified them when he ordered his cases of peas. What would you give to have a grocer like that?
Long before anyone thought of a grocery store as a food boutique, Pop recognized the value of having unique items to distinguish his store from the others in town.
He heard about a woman named Maggie Rudkin who started a bakery in Connecticut. She baked tasty bread with a firm texture unlike the tasteless, lighter-than-air white bread of the day. Pop got her Pepperidge Farm Bread delivered twice a week. I don’t know how he managed that but I do recall Maggie did not deliver as far away as Bridgeton. It wasn’t too many years before Pepperidge Farm was sold to a larger company. I hope Maggie retired on a yacht.
Pop also heard that someone had bred a little chicken, that was all white meat and weighed about a pound. For a long time Levenson’s Market was the only place in town you could get Cornish Game Hens.
As more memories of Levenson’s Market flood back, I realize how much the store is an icon of a forgotten age.
Pop opened the store at 8 a.m. every morning and at 1 pm closed for lunch. He drove home where mom had lunch ready. After lunch Pop would take a 12-minute nap—perhaps the second-most important lesson he ever gave me.
At about 5:30 every evening the shutdown process began. All the vegetables were put in a walk-in refrigerator for the night. The meat grinders were dissembled, washed, and stored in the refrigerator. The butcher block was scrapped with a brush that had a hundred steel blades. I swept the entire store.
On Saturday Pop stayed until 8:00 pm. He boiled water in buckets and wiped down the inside off all his meat display cases. He boiled the guts of the hamburger grinders and slicing machines.
I understand that twice a week for many years he got up at 3 am and drove an hour into Philadelphia. He went down into a warehouse district and bought all his fruits and vegetables. Finally, some enterprising man with a truck bought a load of vegetables and delivered to the grocery stores of Bridgeton. I’ll bet Pop appreciated the extra four hours sleep.
A Year on the Road 
I am reminiscing with you, “Pop’s” stores were everywhere and when I was about 16, I worked for a couple – the first, cleaning, sorting and “deflowering” vegies, and sweeping the floors, the other delivering in an old panel truck. What fun to remember, more as you’re writing it down—and you do a good job.
This is good stuff, Al – your best, in my opinion.
I’ll bet those tomatoes tasted better than what they sell in the markets now. We grow our own each summer. So good! No comparison.
I would walk out in Pop’s garden with a shaker of salt in my pocket and eat them off the vine. That was before pesticides.
AL
Takes me back to fresh markets in Montreal…..fall markets where all the
negotiation skills I aspire to today were born there getting the best
from the best for the best price. Good old days for sure! My Dad did lots
of the talking and Mom did lots of the cooking with it all. I did most of
the dishes but, I didn’t mind….I really didn’t back then.
Al, I find when an email shows up….I smile before I read whatever you have to say.
Karen
Wonderful memories, Al and wonderful prose. Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, Walmart helped ‘Mom and Pop’ stores become a legend and a memory.
My father had a produce stand in downtown Baltimore and had to get up in the middle of the night to get down to the harbor where I believe he met both the farmers coming in with their trucks as well as anybody coming in by boat. So, we always had wonderful fresh fruits and veggies. I remember what real peaches tasted like and really fresh corn on the cob, not long off the stalk. Someone in a neighborhood I lived in before I was 11 had a black cherry tree and, oh, was that a yummy picking day. So, we benefited not only from the fresh produce but had Chesapeake Bay seafood within hours of being caught. I’m missing steamed blue crabs and softshells already. Darn!
Hi Al……..guess I can read your journal to catch up on what you’ve been up to. Last I saw you was years ago in Dania. Won’t it be neat to reconnect!!!
Where I live now, people stereotype “city people” as having an asphalt childhood, believing fresh air, good food and the aroma of nature is something city folk never experienced. To them, I’ll describe a typical summer supper at my house in the heart of Minneapolis.
Mom made freshly squeezed lemonade, crispy fried sunfish (that Dad just caught at Lake Nokomis), homemade baked beans and crusty homemade bread, fresh raspberries from the garden with cream- all served on a red and white checked tablecloth. We sat on the porch with the summer breeze of just cut grass wafting through open windows. Sensory learning at it’s best…never to be forgotten.