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TRENARY
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Trenary Home Bakery. Home of a Finnish cinnamon toast known throughout the U.P., Trenary Home Bakery also produces a variety of breads, including traditional Finnish rye called limpu ...
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Whitefish Falls. An easy stop from U.S. 41 between Rapid River and Marquette, the Whitefish River drops in three cascading stairs over rock shelves ...
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Trenary Home Bakery
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The old Finnish favorite of cinnamon toast (korpu) has been so successfully marketed and distributed by this small-town bakery that, far and wide, it's simply known as "Trenary toast" — Upper Peninsula soul food, along with pasties.
Slightly sweeter than ordinary bread, it's coated with a cinnamon-sugar-spice mix and baked again, slowly. The resulting toast is great for dunking in coffee. With a shelf life of five months, it's ideal for hunting and camping.
In the 1950s Hans and Esther Hallinen started delivering brown paper bags of toast to stores in Escanaba, Marquette, and Munising. Success led them to upgrade the bag, but customers insisted on going back to basic brown paper.
Today Trenary toast has become a quintessential U.P. regional food item and a sentimental favorite among those who have moved away. A 10-ounce bag (10 to 12 pieces) currently sells for $3.15. (Expect prices to go up with rising wheat prices.) Mail-order sales through an 800 number (800-862-7801) are UPS'd to every state. Now Trenary toast is also on the web at trenarytoast.us. The Trenary Home Bakery also ships two-pound loaves of a traditional Finnish "old country" rye (limpu) and a one-pound sour rye.
Building on the bakery's success, owners Bruce and Maureen Hallinen tried combining bakery retail sales with a little restaurant in a separate building, the former Red Owl grocery. But it didn't work and the bakery is no longer open for walk-in business, either. Breads and toast can be bought at the Trenary Co-op. (See the Trenary town profile.)
On M-67, three buildings east of Trenary's main four-corners. From U.S. 41 19 miles north of Rapid River and 35 miles southeast of Marquette, go east 1/2 mile to get to Trenary. (906) 446-3330.
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