Thanksgiving is looming, and in addition to thinking about things for which we are thankful, our thoughts naturally turn to food.

So what better time to take a look at some photos related to the Mity-Nice bakery products that once were produced right here in Lansdale?

Lois Wolf lent The Reporter a small green booklet which apparently was produced in 1939, titled “Your Mity-Nice Bakers,” which related the history of the company, noting that Frederick W. Koehler came to Lansdale from East Greenville in 1894 and started a small bakery.

“Deliveries were first made in a push cart, and the only product was bread ... one sort of bread,” the booklet notes.

Since most of the women in Lansdale baked their own bread, Koehler had to win them over, so he kept up his hard work of making great bread, the booklet noted, and then expanded to add rolls, more varieties of bread, buns, pies and cakes.

“Each product helped the others, because the people were still saying: ‘Koehler’s goods are mighty nice.’”

The name was adopted and coined into Mity-Nice as the trademark.

But in 1919, the plant was destroyed by fire. Instead of giving up, Koehler built a new bakery and, in the fall of 1921, Oscar Fretz entered the business, which became Koehler & Fretz Inc.

The 1939 booklet noted that when the business was incorporated, there were five delivery routes. By 1939, that had grown to 32 routes, covering a 25-mile radius of Lansdale.

Products described in the booklet include Mity-Nice bread, Honey-Meel bread, sandwich bread, Vienna bread, 70 percent whole wheat bread, cracked wheat bread, rye bread, dual bread (half white, half 70 percent whole wheat), cinnamon buns, trolley buns, butter buns, crumb buns, tea rings, snails (“they are a dainty worth trying”), sweet buns, various rolls, pies and cakes.

The booklet also describes how to make various types of sandwiches (“Be sure the bread is Mity-Nice); offers tips for using bread (“To keep sandwiches, pile sandwiches together and lay a damp towel over them); and even includes such recipes as Meat Loaf Pie, Cherry Brown Betty and Quaker Pudding.

So, is your stomach growling yet?