Nowadays, one can learn any trade online. With endless Reddit forums, step-by-step YouTube tutorials, and even more so with the advancement of artificial intelligence, our bounds are practically limitless.
But despite the unrestricted access to information just beneath our fingertips, we seem to have lost the meaning of our craft. While we can replicate techniques and mimic compositions, artificial intelligence has yet to master the simulation of culture, community, and context within these lessons.
San Jeronimo Restaurant & Bakery, a CitizensNYC’s Neighborhood Business Grant recipient, recognizes the significance of care and humanity in teaching a craft—particularly in baking bread. Pan dulce, directly translating to sweet bread, refers to a wide variety of Mexican pastries and buns. From sugar-crusted conchas (a sweet, soft bread roll with a crunchy, shell-patterned crust) to light and fluffy mantecadas (simply sweetened loaf cakes), pan dulce represents more than just sweet bread; it represents heritage, cultural connection, and sustained tradition.
Tucked away in Port Richmond, Staten Island, Sarahi Marquez and her father, Antonio, work to bring the authentic flavors of San Jerónimo to life within their restaurant and bakery. And while the restaurant serves a primarily Latino population, many of whom are living below the poverty line and have little access to a cooking class, Sarahi was determined to change that.
The San Jeronimo Restaurant & Bakery breadmaking classes are immersive, hands-on lessons teaching traditional Mexican pan dulce recipes, free of charge. Conchas, mantecadas, orejas, bolillos—while everyone may like to eat them, it is no good without a baker who can make them. A push to preserve culinary heritage and expand food-industry pathways, the Port Richmond community comes together to melt sugar into butter, knead dough beneath their palms, and carry on intergenerational traditions.
There is language within the food we consume, a unifying, universal tongue. Sarahi remarks, “You don’t have to share the same language to taste food and share this experience of fullness, warmth, and positivity.” There is community in food. There’s culture, camaraderie, and if you’re lucky, a lifelong career. In combining technique with cultural lessons, participants explore alternatives to the traditional, technical, vocational, or industrial careers.
Many of the individuals living in Port Richmond, including Sarahi, are skilled in trade, finding themselves working in blue-collar jobs. It is a familiar, reliable pipeline within low-income communities to ensure that families get fed. But Sarahi has identified a demand within the food industry; she has spearheaded a movement with the freedom to choose passion.
“You can work with your hands still. Not just in cement, but in dough too.”
CitizensNYC stands firmly and wholeheartedly behind neighborhood businesses like San Jeronimo Restaurant & Bakery in renewing cultural pride and growing culinary confidence within local communities. In spite of its dying tradition, Sarahi is determined to push forth pan dulce as a labor of love. She’s ready to whisk eggs, sift flour, celebrate tradition, and encourage curiosity. Port Richmond comes together to learn in both heart and hand, indulging in and ingesting knowledge, community, and sweet delicacies.
A quick Google search may lead you to millions of recipes for pan dulce, but there are still some things that a YouTube tutorial won’t be able to teach you.
