Holy Cannoli!

You can buy a plane ticket to Italy for several hundred dollars, or you can take the T. The North End's small streets are lined with bakeries, specialty shops and quaint restaurants similar to those that populate Italian cities. The inviting smell of fresh bread and rich ricotta wafts from shops like Bova's and Maria's, transporting passersby to a cultural oasis where crumbling frescoes replace bright billboards.

"Little Italy" gives visitors and residents of Boston a taste of the boot-shaped country across the Atlantic, and tasting — of food, wine and sweet treats — is itself a central part of the North End's charm.   

In the early 2000s, the Big Dig changed the landscape and culture of the North End. Pastry shops and other specialty stores, often family-owned and intimately tied to a loyal customer base, were severely affected by the construction and its aftermath. With current economic struggles, these small businesses are faced with difficult times and must adjust to a new "Little Italy."

Maria's pastry shop: Not all sugar and sweets   

Though she may own a pastry shop, sugary sweet doesn't come close to describing Maria Merola.

"I don't like sweets," she said. That may come as a surprise — considering that most of Merola's time is spent making them.   

Merola, 56, the woman behind Maria's Pastry Shop in Boston's North End, is independent, controlling, gruff and even unfriendly. Handshakes aren't her thing. Merola plops herself down in the chair for an interview and slams a half-full coffee mug down on the table. "Alright," she says roughly, picking at the remnants of something stuck to her polar fleece jacket and glancing around the room.

Merola grew up on a farm with her parents and three siblings in southern Naples before arriving in the United States in 1968. After a bad crop in Italy, her parents decided to make the jump from a rural life to an urban one — and from one country to another. "My father never liked the change," said Merola. "We felt like prisoners here."   

Merola's father worked in a box factory and her mother clocked hours at a candy factory. When Merola was a teenager, she began work herself — at the pastry shop with a sign now bearing her name.

Merola knew little about baking until she started working at the shop, yet she took over the business in 1982. Merola now makes all of the pastries herself and refuses to use recipes. "All of the time I go by the recipe they don't come out right," said Merola. "You might like something, but don't ask me to make it again. Things always taste different."

The ingredients may vary, but the quality of Merola's pastries is consistent — and, some say, better than that of other North End bakeries. "We can use the same ricotta as someone else, but people say ours is better," said Merola. "My day-old stuff tastes better than their fresh stuff. It's knowing and feeling. You've got to touch it. I know when flour is dry, when ricotta is watery."

Bova's: A family effort

Bova's, located on Salem Street near the Old North Church in Boston, is currently owned by Anthony Bova. The shop specializes in whoopie pies and cannolis as well as a variety of Italian breads and calzones. It stays open 24/7 and, unlike Maria's Pastry Shop, Bova's relies on crews coming in for different shifts to continually bake fresh pastries and breads as needed.

The bakery has been in business for 85 years and has passed through three generations of Bovas. Anthony Bova's grandfather, originally from Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, began the business and passed it on to one of his five sons — Anthony's father.   

"[My grandfather] had five sons, but I was like a son to him too," said Bova. "I worked there as a young boy until I took over the business after my father."

Bova noted that the atmosphere and comfort food his shop provides makes it appealing to long-time customers as well as those simply stopping by out of curiosity after a late dinner in "Little Italy."

"People don't see bakeries like this where they live," said Bova. "A lot of restaurants don't give you coffee with dessert. They want to turn the tables to make more money. That's why these cafes and bakeries get crowded — people need a place to lounge and relax."

Digging and changing   

Merola said that her customer base has changed dramatically due to the Big Dig and resulting gentrification. "Before, families used to come here every weekend," said Merola. "I knew who was coming and who wasn't because they would call me. It used to be more one-on-one." Merola said that she used to sell 80 loaves of bread on a weekend. She now sells eight.

Big Dig construction was meant to increase traffic to the North End, which was previously segregated from much of Boston by I-93. In December of 2003, the Big Dig opened up Cross Street, on which Maria's Pastry Shop is currently located. The development was an attempt to improve traffic and pedestrian access to the area.

While Cross Street may have made the Italian sector more accessible to the rest of Boston, Merola said that other problems arose from the construction efforts. According to the pastry chef, affordable parking in the area, now phased out by Big Dig construction, once made the North End an easy one-stop shopping experience. Stores specializing in cheese, meat and other goods lined the street, but they've since left the area one by one. "They just couldn't make it," said Merola. "The cheese guy had people digging right in front of his door."

Now Merola relies primarily on tourists for clientele. Cooking-tour groups pass through the shop, visitors excitedly examining cannoli and sfogliatelle pastries with cameras slung around their necks.    "People sometimes come in and say, ‘Oh, I used to come here every Saturday with my grandfather,'" said Merola. "Now they only come in once in a blue moon. I say, ‘Thanks a lot.'"