Jewcy: When Shiksa Met Deli
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010Nothing much to say about this great story on Jewcy, except it is pretty perfect for all us deli lovers of all stripes:
When Shiksa Met Jewish Meat
Exploring The Current State of the Jewish Deli
by Ellie Ratcliff, June 21, 2010
My mom tells me she once went through a corned beef phase of her life. At thirteen, after trying a corned beef sandwich for the first time, it was all she would order at restaurants. She’d eat the sandwich for days at a time. A little corned beef with her breakfast eggs, left over beef for dinner. Just imagine: a Chinese pre-teen rubbing elbows with your bubby at the local deli. The Chinese and Jews seem to have an unspoken bond, probably due to the Jewish tradition of Chinese food for Christmas dinner.
When I was thirteen, I was obsessed with lox shmear on poppy seed bagels. I’d dream about latkes and Dr. Brown’s cream soda, crave matzo ball soup for my sore throat. It’s possible my love for Jewish food is in my non-Jewish blood, but I think it’s the result of growing up in Berkeley, CA. As a kid, many of my friends were Jewish. And what did being Jewish mean to me, besides bar mitzvahs and saying words like “schmuck”? It meant getting to eat all these delicious things I couldn’t get anywhere but my friend’s kitchen and the neighborhood deli. Cholent, Matzah Brei, Pastrami. Forget the Old Testament, I learned about Judaism through eating. (more…)
Monday’s Random Smorgasbord
Monday, June 14th, 2010It’s Monday, and a week since I’ve gotten back from honeymoon, so let’s clean out my inbox with stuff that’s piled up, and I haven’t posted yet.
First, to the news. The New York Daily News reports on Brooklyn’s Mill Basin Kosher Deli (my favorite post-surf spot), where owner Mark Schachner is going head to head with the fast food chains. Reports Jake Pearson:
Mill Basin Kosher Deli owner Mark Schachner is waging a one-man war against fast food chain restaurants - determined to debunk the myth they’re better bargains than his traditional kosher deli.
“Meat to meat and french fry to french fry, we’re 100% cheaper,” said Schachner, 57, who sent out secret shoppers to order from fast food joints to measure the weight of fries, burgers, hot dogs and the meat in sandwiches….
Just as Schachner predicted, the deli’s hot dogs, fries, turkey and burgers are cheaper by the pound than what’s sold at fast food joints like Subway, Nathan’s and McDonald’s - even if as individual items they’re more expensive.
His covert buyers compared the $8.95 Mill Basin Deli burger, packed with .57 pounds of kosher beef, to a $4.29 Whopper from Burger King, which weighs only .18 pounds - a price-per-pound saving of $8.13…. “I sell a hot dog for $2.99 and Nathan’s sells it for $2.99 so it’s the same price, but Nathan’s is a 2-ounce dog and mine is 4 ounces. It’s not a fair comparison.”
So now you have an economic reason, as well as taste and tradition, to skip the chains and stick to the delis.
Next, in the sports section, Manny’s is celebrating the recent Stanley Cup win of the Chicago Blackhawks with an edible recreation of Lord Stanley’s trophy made from knishes, kishke, rye, and corned beef. As the great Joe Bowen would say, “Holy Mackinaw!”.
And finally, a series of videos I’ve been meaning to post for some time. (more…)
Torontovore’s Smoked Meat Taste Test
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
Some deli lovers are simply obsessed with rankings. Like the people who buy magazines with the title “100 places to visit” or “30 must-do pushups”, there’s just something about competition and listing that gets the pros fired up.
And so it is with smoked meat in Toronto, which has been enjoying a renaissance over the past few years. First came Caplansky’s, then Stockyards, and Goldins…and let us pray for even more.
But which is best? That’s the question. (more…)
Siegelman waxes poetic on deli’s decline in Forward
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010Stanley Siegelman, bard of all verse Jewish in the Forward’s Siegelmania column, weighs in on the death of the deli this weeks poem. Pretty cool:
Decline of the Jewish Deli
We face a cause that’s almost lost,
A gastronomic holocaust!
The deli, home of gourmandise,
Is tottering, upon its knees!
This sanctum of the epicure
No longer is a place secure!
Pastrami lovers everywhere
Are in the throes of deep despair.
They raise their voice in angst and fear
That deli-stores might disappear.
In delis, waiters lie in wait,
Prepared to argue and debate.
’Tis there, midst grease, do the obese
Fall prey to hardened arteries.
No outside activists intrude
In serving Jewish comfort-food.
As chicken soup the patron slurps,
And punctuates the deed with burps,
He contemplates a future dim:
If delis croak, who’ll care for him?
Who’ll serve him kishke, chicken neck,
And all that other kosher dreck?
Some day there could be hell to pay
If he can’t quaff Doc Brown’s Cel-Ray!
Those pickles let the man devour
Before the scene turns truly sour!
Bicarb-of-soda is routine,
A standby of the whole cuisine!
Where do the cognoscenti sup
When delis die, go belly up?
While asking questions such as these,
Let’s eat — and hold the mustard, please!
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ON THE FORWARD’S SITE
NYPL: Mogen Dovid Delicatessen Journals
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Here’s a special shabbat treat for you all:
When I was researching the book, I often came across references to various delicatessen trade magazines from the early 20th century in New York. Despite my efforts to find them at various libraries, I never succeeded, and moved my research efforts elsewhere (mostly eating deli). Thankfully, others aren’t so easily deterred.
Rebecca Federman writes last week on the blog of the New York Public Library about the Mogen Dovid Delicatessen Journals.
I was introduced to these periodicals by Roberta Saltzman, the librarian in the Dorot Jewish Division, who has cultivated a world-class collection of Jewish cookery materials. Among the fascinating items in her collection is the Mogen Dovid Delicatessen Magazine, published in New York from 1930 until 1939.
Firmly union (”Live and Let Live” and “In Union there is Strength” are prominently featured on each issue), and printed in both English and Yiddish, Mogen Dovid covers the world of New York delicatessen culture and features articles related to racketeering, Brooklyn elections, trade overhead and union matters.
One of the most interesting parts of each issue is their Fair Price List which lists “at which the following food should be sold in all delicatessen stores.” The March, 1931 issue, for example, proposes that roast chicken (depending on its size) should cost between $1.50 and $2.50; the Temptation Sandwich (tongue, sliced tomato, and India relish) should cost 30 cents; cream cheese and olive sandwich, 20 cents, and a sardine sandwich, 15 cents.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF HER ENTRY
How cool is this? If any of you have ephemera like this, and want to donate it to the New York Public Library, get in touch with Ms. Federman. If you want, we’re both going to be speaking tomorrow on a panel about Edible Archaeology at Foodprint NYC, along with “Appetite City” author William Grimes, and “Gastropolis” author Annie Hauck-Lawson.
Studio-X (180 Varick St., Suite 1610, New York, NY 10014)
My panel is from 3:30-5pm, but there’s stuff happening from 1pm onward.
oh, and it’s Free!
Random Stuff: Deli maps, Roaster’s out of Dallas, Nate n’ Al helps Haiti, and my talk in Seattle
Monday, February 8th, 2010Ok, all sorts of random things to get through, and none of them even remotely related.
First off, a fan of the site, Mr. Jim Peters, has taken it upon himself to drop some delis into google maps and make deli specific maps of Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Toronto, and San Francisco/Bay area, based on the information found in my book. The site is called greatdelis.com, and it’s the start of something great, I hope. Help Jim out if you can and add in more cities. You can contact him via the site. Here’s an example from LA:
View LA Pastrami in a larger map
Next, we have some sad news via Robert Wilonsky at the Dallas Observer:
Roasters’ N Toasters, Toasted
By Robert Wilonsky in Dish
Maybe I’ll get around to writing this for City of Ate: Why can’t Dallas do a proper Hebrew deli? Sure — it’s a dying art and an endangered species. So says David Sax in his book Save the Deli; as NPR put it a few months back, he’s on a mission to save the Jewish deli, close to a permanent shalom in the foresaken flyover. Which I mention this morning only because Roasters’ N Toasters, the Preston Road outpost of the Miami mainstay, has served its last pastrami sandwich and bowl of matzo ball soup.
Too bad. I had friends in Dallas who really liked Roaster’s and Toasters. Not to worry though, because the Florida stores are in fine form.
In somewhat better news, the legendary Beverly Hills delicatessen Nate N’ Al, is helping out in Haiti, by donating 20 percent of dining proceeds from Feb 8-10th to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.
We already knew that Mark and David Mendelson were mentches, but this puts them over the top. If you haven’t visited their new Thousand Oaks store, here’s your reason!
Finally, a nice treat for all of you who weren’t able to attend my talk at the I Love New York Deli in Seattle last wednesday. Journalist Sanjay Bhatt was there to film it for a possible movie he’s making about food, and he’s been kind enough to share parts of the lecture on YouTube. I’ll post one clip below. The others you can find here.
HardLox
Monday, September 21st, 2009Gotta love this. A Jewish culture festival in Asheville, NC, called
Name that Party…the Vote
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
So, when I asked you all last week to help name the launch party at Ben’s on Oct 19th, I was floored with the fantastic response I received from all you deli lovers. I got about 20 submissions, ranging from the standard (Savor the Deli) to the insanely creative (the great chrain robbery, Meet the Deli Lama, Salvador Deli). The craziest goes to Daniel Berkal, who suggested transforming “Save the Deli” as an anagram into “Hide Salt Eve” or “I’d Sheet Veal”.
But in the end, I have whittled it down to seven ideas, some yours, some mine, and I put it to a vote below. Sweet democracy. It’s come to Save the Deli as well.
(more…)
“The Deli” by Fa-Cock-Ta! rocks.
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009If you took everything this site and my book and all this Save the Deli mishigas is about, set it to some early 1990’s Tone Loc beats, and then laid mildly inappropriate lyrics over it by a Jewish Lady GaGa in character as MC Ethel (”a 52 year old drunk Jewish cougar from Boca and lead singer of the world’s premiere Heeb-hop group, FA-COCK-TA”), then you’d get FA-COCK-TA’s awesome song The Deli.
YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE SONG AT www.fa-cock-ta.com
The lyrics…oh, they’re genius. They include lines like “My baby’s got some extra baggage, she’s got a bootie shaped like stuffed cabbage” and “It’s Boyton Beach it’s so hot I always, shvitz, but I put up with the heat for a meal at Flakowitz.”
(more…)
Buzz builds in Israel and Miami, plus a great new book and Deli Heaven relaunches
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009להציל את המעדנייה (that’s Save the Deli in the mother tongue)
Sue Fishkoff’s JTA article from the other day got reprinted in the Jerusalem Post, and it’s gotten quite popular. It’s gotten 4.71 out of 5 stars by readers, and already has 31 comments on it. It’s also the Editor’s Pick online, which is a real honor, considering that Israel is hardly a place suffering from a lack of news. The comments, from both sites, are the best part of this. (more…)
