Exclusive Excerpt from “Save the Deli” in the National Post
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
Well deli lovers, here’s your first taste of “Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen”
Today the National Post published several pages from the Canadian chapters (14 and 15) on Toronto and Montreal. Enjoy:
Live and Let Rye
While Montreal’s delicatessen still inspires passion the world over, it’s a different story down the 401
David Sax, Weekend Post
Though I was born and raised in Toronto, my parents are both native Montrealers, leaving for Toronto in the late 1970s like so many of their contemporaries, fleeing the unstable politics of Quebec’s separatists. Though her childhood home was just steps from Snowdon Deli, one of Montreal’s finest, Mom rarely ate delicatessen. Her Canadianborn parents, Evelyn and Stanley Davis, were the furthest thing from Bubbe and Zaide.
Grandma cooked from a pantry stocked with cans and powders, often tossing together “concoctions” from leftovers. They ate every meal with a glass of milk. Though they were decidedly Jewish in religion and race, at the table they were basically goyish.
My deli genes came from my father’s side. Though both his parents came to Canada when they were children, they retained the flavour of Romania and Hungary. Long after “Poppa” Sam Sax died at the hands of that fatal sandwich, Daniel and I would visit the apartment of our “Granny” Ella Sax and head straight for her kitchen. On the stove, pots of sweet-and-sour meatballs bubbled. (more…)
More Jewcy, Rabbis rock, Michael Savage curbs our meaty liberty
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Another day of crazy love and press for Save the Deli. God bless you all.
First off, check out my latest exclusive Jewcy.com blog post “Where Deli is Community”
Once upon a time, the delicatessen was the third pole of Jewish American communal life. The other two were the synagogue, where people prayed twice daily, and the bathouse, shvitz, or mikveh, where the men and women gossiped, bathed, and bonded. Considering that the synagogue was separated by sex, as, naturally, was the bathhouse, the delicatessen was the one spot where community socialized as one. It was open to everyone from the pious to the sinners, the machers and pishers, criminals and politicians.
In communities like Boston’s Dorchester and Mattapan neighborhoods, delis like the G&G Delicatessen were de-facto community halls. It’s where people went to plead to those in power, where the humble and the exalted could meet equally over a bowl of soup. The Irish had their pubs and the Italians their cafes. We had our delis.
Somewhere in the past decades of post-war evolution and assimilation, the deli lost its place as a locus of the community where it was based. First, communities moved, and quickly. Some happened because of the housing opportunities in the suburbs. Others because of white flight, and the deterioration of American inner-cities. READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AT JEWCY.COM
Next, the good folks at the Jew and the Carrot, the blog of Hazon, are giving away a copy of Save the Deli. All you have to do is go and comment on Jeffrey Yoskowitz’s article to enter the draw. Keep your eyes on Yosko. He’s one of the best up and coming food writers out there.
And now the best piece of news I received today, from my friend Amanda Blitz, via Facebook (check out the piece she did on Delis in the economy):
“DAVE, rabbi’s entire sermon today (Beth Tikvah) was about your book!!!! I was so excited. He tried to compare it to the parsha and the Garden of Eden. He discussed self-destruction and how your book points out that the demise of the Jewish del…i world is in part due to outsourcing and not making everything new themselves. He talked about how the delis that have survived are the ones that continue to make their own matzah ball soup and hand cut meat…. i.e. the ones that didn’t neglect the true and quintessential part of being a deli: being homegrown. He compared that to how we should not neglect our spiritual self or else we too will self-destruct. It was a stretch, but I was just so happy to hear him talk about you and your book. Mazel tov!”
I’m not sure if this was Rabbi Allen or Rabbi Grover, but thank you so much. This is really an honor. Save the Deli was always more than just where to find a great sandwich. It is a story about a slice of the Jewish community, and if we don’t take ownership over the fate of our own culture, it will vanish. It’s up to us.
Which is why I find it rather sad and pathetic to hear that I was attacked on-air last night by conservative radio host Michael Savage (who I initially confused with sex columnist Dan Savage). In addition to fighting against Gay rights, health insurance reforms, and the vast liberal conspiracy, the Jewish born Mr. Savage (nee Michael Alan Weiner in da Bronx) had time to rail against my quest to save the deli. You see, Mr. Savage is a bit of a health nut, and apparently his great quest to preserve the flame of American liberty doesn’t extend to the liberty of what Americans eat and enjoy. If someone decides to help pay for a doctor visit that’s basically Stalinism, but god forbid people should enjoy a kishke and matzo ball. He’s pretty much Susan Power on this issue.
What can I say, it’s a compliment to be bashed by a shmendrick like Mr. Savage. A bi gezunte Weiner! Here’s to burning the bridge of your roots.
Dara Horn’s “The Ethnic Food Chain” in the Wall Street Journal
Thursday, October 15th, 2009Dara Horn is probably my fiances favorite writer, and she is certainly one of mine. I wrote about her in this piece for Vanity Fair last spring, and now I’m pleased to see that she’s tackling an important subject in the pages of the Wall Street Journal: Saving Delis
The Ethnic Food Chain
by Dara Horn
CLICK HERE TO READ THE STORY AT WSJ.COM
illustration by Martin Kozlowski for the WSJ
A few years ago, after a speaking engagement in Rochester, N.Y., I was presented with the Rochester Hadassah Cookbook. Hadassah, the women’s Zionist philanthropy, promotes high-tech medicine, and its publications today feature recipes with ingredients like quinoa. But this particular cookbook, copyright 1972, is an archaeological marvel. Within its pages are hundreds of foods that have surely not been eaten in decades, including “Cottage Cheese Cake,” “Dipsy Doodle Liverwurst Pate” and “Herring Cacciatore.” There is an entire chapter on punch, and another on Jell-O molds. Proustian madeleines of a previous generation, these delicacies might evoke some readers’ remembrances of things past. But I was born in 1977; the thought of them made me slightly ill.
I was reminded of this artifact while reading David Sax’s “Save the Deli,” a new book recounting the rise and decline of Jewish delicatessens. Once as common in American inner cities as burrito joints are today, Jewish delis have largely faded as the communities that frequented them moved to the suburbs and changed their tastes. Traveling the world in search of a Platonic ideal of corned beef on rye, Mr. Sax finds that today’s successful Jewish delis are anomalies sustained by any one of four business models. Some are run by a charismatic owner-operator who devotes heart and soul to the place and usually dies with it, like the much-loved Wolfie Cohen Rascal House in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. Some, such as Manhattan’s Carnegie Deli, resemble museums, preserving exaggerated, ancient menus and becoming tourist attractions. Others diversify, as did Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Mich., becoming a gourmet shop and supermarket brand instead of a restaurant. Or they find new a clientele—the new owner of Lou’s, an old-style inner-city Jewish deli in Detroit, discovered that African-Americans also love corned beef. (more…)
Atlantic Food Blog #5 “For Better Deli Meats, Slice by Hand”
Thursday, October 15th, 2009One more Atlantic blog post…on a very important subject.
photo (of me, at Katz’s) by Christopher Farber
For Better Deli Meats, Slice by Hand
I wonder how the Jewish delicatessen counterman felt back when the deli’s owner brought in the first automated Berkel slicing machine. With its whirring circular blade, mechanized springs, and feeder tray, here was a device that could quickly turn a whole corned beef brisket or navel pastrami into uniform ribbons of sandwich meat. (Navel is a kosher cut of beef from the belly of cattle, just below the brisket–similar to brisket but not as fibrous and stringy, and with a denser cap of fat.) Did he think, “This is great. Now I can stop icing my arm at the end of the day?” Or did he just stare in silence, aware that his existence had just been made obsolete, and contemplate smashing the thing to pieces?
The Luddites were a misguided, naïve, and somewhat violent group of idealists, but they weren’t wrong. The automated weaving looms that they vainly tried to destroy did end up replacing them, and their livelihood died off.
As the number of Jewish delis have shrunk over the past century, so too have the number of delicatessens that hand-slice their meats. The introduction of the automated slicing machine was Jewish deli’s industrial revolution. It allowed deli owners to make more sandwiches with fewer countermen, to waste less meat, and to encourage uniformity. In terms of business, it was a no-brainer. Taste? Not so much.
(more…)
Jewcy Blog Post #2 “A Near-Death Sandwich”
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009The second of my series of posts for the sweet folks at Jewcy.com
A Near-Death Sandwich
I’m often asked what was the highlight of writing my book Save the Deli. What’s the best Jewish deli I ate in; where did I discover the tastiest pastrami sandwich; who is the most interesting deli owner I met? So far, no one’s asked me about my worst experience…the low point of Save the Deli.
It occurred as I drove between Kansas City and Denver in the middle of February, 2007. I wanted to sample fast food’s take on Jewish deli and so I’d pulled over for lunch at an Arby’s and ordered their version of a Reuben sandwich. On the menu picture, it looked to be the most perfect Reuben ever…thick slices of swirly marble rye, moist pink meat folded gently like fine satin drapes, a corner of Swiss poking over the edge with its telltale holes, a little garnish of sauerkraut and a few droplets of Russian dressing. Peeling back the paper wrapper, I saw an entirely different sandwich. The intricately layered folds of corned beef were in fact a squished pink mass, still sizzling from a nuking in the microwave. My crisp marble rye had become two slices of good old-fashioned white bread with some food dye. The sauerkraut limped sadly into the oozing mass of processed “Swiss”; a slice of white American cheese poked with decorative holes…about as Swiss as a North Korean watch. It looked small, dismal, and loveless. The only thing abundant was the Russian dressing, which oozed out of the sandwich each time I pressed down.
I raised the sad sandwich to my lips and bit in. (more…)
Where to even begin? Massive press day.
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Wow. Talk about an insane day of press. I’m floored and extremely grateful for all the coverage. Big props to my publicist Taryn Roeder and her boss, Lori Glazer. Applause please.
First off, let’s hear the audio from my brief chat with Brian Lehrer from WNYC, who looks suspiciously like Mitch Dermer, my friend from McGill who co-wrote that fateful deli paper all those years back. Download the audio here.
Next, we have a great story in the New York Post, with a Letterman headline twist.
“Hello, Deli”
Author hungry to save the delicatessen
By CARLA SPARTOS
DAVID Sax isn’t meshuga, but he is on an “obsessive quest.” The 30-year-old author visited more than 100 delis around the world while researching his book, “Save the Deli,” out Monday. According to Sax, the deli is on the decline even here in New York — “the spiritual, historical and cultural capital of Jewish delicatessen.” So where can you join the cause and add a little schmaltz to your life? Over pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s, Sax discussed NYC’s delis to die for.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE
Next up, a preview of tomorrow’s AMNewYork article on me and Saving the Deli (more…)
Brian Lehrer, Chicago Sun Times, San Jose Mercury News, and Zucky’s Deli
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Hey everyone. Hope you listened to the NPR piece last night. We’re back to #1 in meats on Amazon. Top of the food chain baby!
Another big day today. The highlight is an appearance on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show, which I listen to every day. I’ll be on from 11:40 onward, and you can call in.
A couple of good articles out today:
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SUN TIMES DELI SLIDESHOW
The disappearing deli Chicago Sun Times
Author bemoans demise of Jewish noshing spot, explores future of this cultural icon
by Mike Thomas
All over the country, delis are dying. That’s what author and deli expert David Sax contends. That’s what he writes about on his blog, savethedeli.com, and in his new book, Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24). Chicago is no exception, the lifelong deli devotee says. Its once thriving deli scene is now barely surviving.
“Where each Jewish neighborhood once boasted a dozen delis in its roster,” Sax writes, “now the whole of Chicago and its suburbs barely listed that many.”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE
A la Carte: David Sax and his mission to ‘Save the Deli’
By Jackie Burrell
Contra Costa Times
David Sax is out to save an endangered species.
We’re speaking, of course, of Jewish delicatessens, home to the perfect pastrami sandwich. Mmm, savory slices piled atop double-baked rye bread. With a cream soda on the side. And a kishke or two.
Sax spent months researching the decline of the deli, eating knishes from coast to coast. The result — the intriguing and irreverent “Save the Deli: In Search of the Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen” (Houghton Mifflin, 318 pages, $24) — hits store shelves next week.
Among the Bay Area mentions: Berkeley’s Saul’s Delicatessen, and San Francisco’s Moishe’s Pippic, Miller’s East Coast and David Apfelbaum’s legendary, eponymous deli. At one point, there were an astounding 16 David’s Delicatessens in San Francisco alone. Now there’s just the original one on Geary.
“He has a menu like no other menu you’ve ever seen,” says Sax. “He writes these incredible dishes. Everything is a story, the history of Jewish food, crazy inside jokes.”
Want to meet Sax? Nosh a little, dish a little on the state of Jewish delis? Tell him which delis he missed? Join Sax for a book signing and some pastrami sampling at 4 p.m. Oct. 24 at Saul’s, 1475 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, www.saulsdeli.com. Sax also will sign books at Book Passage at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at the San Francisco Ferry Building.
And finally, LA Filmmaker Leron Kornreich, who runs Timeless Legacy Video, has uploaded and embedded his mini-documentary about the departed yet beloved Zucky’s delicatessen, in LA.
NPR’s All Things Considered “A Mission to Save Real Jewish Delis, A Dying Breed”
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
photo by Greg Miller for NPR
Many thanks to Robert Siegel, Julia Redpath-Buckley, and photographer Greg Miller, plus the NPR web team, for putting this beautiful story and package together.
Click here to download the MP3
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE STORY AT NPR.ORG“>CLICK HERE TO SEE AN AMAZING INTERACTIVE MAP OF DELIS AND DELI STORIES INCLUDING ONE BY MY DAD
The other day, deep in Rego Park, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, Stanley Moscowitz and Walter Israel sat down at a Formica table for lunch at Ben’s Best Kosher Deli on Queens Boulevard.
Moscowitz, who’s 53 and grew up in nearby Forest Hills, ordered first: matzo ball, tip of the tongue, roast beef, rye, Russian, onions and Dr. Brown’s diet cherry drink.
Israel ordered pastrami on rye bread. His son Jason ordered pastrami on white. In his defense, Jason did not ask for mayonnaise, but the combination of pastrami and white bread enjoys a certain status as the epitome of faux pas in Jewish delicatessen shtick.
Writer David Sax, who has a new book called Save the Deli, introduced NPR’s Robert Siegel to Ben’s Best. Sax is on a mission to save and celebrate the Jewish delicatessen. Quoting the late comedian Milton Berle, Sax says, “Anytime someone orders a pastrami sandwich on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE STORY AT NPR.ORG
“So maybe it wasn’t the cholesterol that was killing everyone. It was other people ordering pastrami on white with mayo,” he tells Siegel. “There are certain rules that you should follow in a delicatessen. And they’re not there to be strict, and they’re not there to dictate what you should do. They’re there for your own good. This is meat with such intense flavor with such a long, intricate preparation, that to dilute it with anything other than mustard and rye bread is to take away from it.” (more…)
Village Voice “David Sax Talks About Saving the Deli and the Enduring Appeal of Hot, Fatty Meat”
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Leave it to the Village Voice to make the sexual innuendo out of the topic that everyone has been waiting for.
Good interview though. Mrs. Marx is a former corned beef slicer at Zingerman’s, and knows her deli.
David Sax Talks About Saving the Deli and the Enduring Appeal of Hot, Fatty Meat
By Rebecca Marx Village Voice, Fork in the Road. Oct 13, 2009
Two years before David Sax was born, his paternal grandfather died while eating a smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen in Montreal. But the food that caused his grandfather’s literal downfall was also his legacy: it “pickled my soul with a craving for salt, garlic, and secret spices,” Sax writes. “My birthright was an unconditional love of deli.”
This unconditional, even lethal love is in part what inspired Sax to write Save the Deli, a book that has its origins in a Jewish sociology course Sax took in college. It grew more directly from Sax’s website of the same name, which he dedicated to profiling the country’s remaining authentic delis and interviewing deli lovers throughout the world. As Sax writes in the book, New York has suffered some of the most heavy deli losses: in the 1930s, the city was home to some 1,500 kosher delis. Today, there are less than two dozen spread across the five boroughs.
Fork in the Road spoke with Sax, whose book comes out next Monday, October 19, about the future of the deli, the diversity of the Katz’s clientele, and why the way forward does not lie in the Manischevitini.
(more…)
Crazy Day Roundup
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009Ok, the book is now six days away from launch, with the Deli-Licious NYC party at Ben’s happening on the 19th, the DC Sixth and I talk with Evan Klein on the 21st, and the Toronto launch party at Caplansky’s on the 22nd.
The Ben’s party has been getting particularly good attention. Today we got shoutouts in the listings of the New Yorker (for all you highbrow uptowners) and the Village Voice (for all you rocking downtowners).
Tonight, on NPR’s All Things Considered, listen as I sit down with host Robert Siegel at Ben’s Best Kosher Delicatessen, in Queens, NY, for an interview about Save the Deli. The show airs nationally from 4pm-6pm, though longer in some areas. After 7pm EST, the interview will be available online for you to listen to. Also, don’t forget that All Things Considered wants your deli stories and photos. Email stories to deli@npr.org and upload any pictures you have to Flickr with the tag “nprdeli”.
Lots more to come this week. Today I’m especially excited to do a taping for Bronx Flavor, by far the most amazing food internet TV show ever. Hell, it’s the best food TV show period. The Baron and I will be feasting on schmaltzy treats in the Bronx, whose succulent powers one can only imagine. If you haven’t seen the show, you must. It’s the Wayne’s World of this generation. Only real. (more…)
