Philadelphicon: The Amoroso Roll

You don’t have to live in Philly to know Amoroso’s: You can now buy the thin-crusted torpedo roll in more than 30 states and even on two tropical islands. But 104 years after the first breadstuff emerged from Vincenzo Amoroso’s brick oven on North 64th Street, the brand remains as tied to Philadelphia as the baguette is to Paris. There are few who remember its beginnings as a rustic, rough-crusted roll hand-delivered to the city’s hungry Italians. But the softer, sweeter version that Amoroso’s developed after World War II is known to every Philadelphian who’s ever chomped into a hoagie. With the recent death of Vincenzo’s grandson Daniel, who ran the bakery with his brothers for six decades, the torch has been passed to Daniel Jr. and his cousin Leonard — still baking, as their slogan so aptly states, “the rolls that make Philly’s sandwiches world-famous.”