The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home

by Nick Zukin

  “As it is written, Let all who are hungry come and eat. Nobody likes to dance on an empty stomach. If you give us borscht, fine. If not, I’ll take knishes or kreplach, kugel or dumplings. Blintzes and cheese will suit me, too. Make anything you like, and the more the better, but do it quickly.”

  —Sholom Aleichem, “The Bubble Bursts” (the second story of Tevye the Dairyman; 1899)

  To my dad, who let me destroy a fridge-full of ingredients as a five year old.

  To my mom, who can stick a chile relleno to the ceiling like no one else.

  To my wife, whose lack of skills in the kitchen made me expand my own.

  And to my friends John and Scott, who never seem to mind indulging in second dinner . . . or third dinner.

  —NZ

  To Gracie and the family

  —MCZ

  Contents

  Foreword by Nach Waxman

  Introduction:

  Why a Cookbook About Jewish Delicatessen Food?

  The Origin and Evolution of the Jewish Delicatessen

  The Birth and Promise of the Artisan Deli

  Chapter 1: Deli Food Basics

  Chapter 2: Starters and Sides

  Chapter 3: Soups and Salads

  Chapter 4: Eggs, Fish, and Dairy

  Chapter 5: Beef

  Chapter 6: Bagels, Bialys, and Breads

  Chapter 7: Pastries, Desserts, and Drinks

  Sources and Resources:

  Where to Find What You Need to Know and Buy

  Our Favorite Artisan Jewish Delicatessens

  Selected Bibliography

  Metric Conversions and Equivalents

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword by

  Nach Waxman

  For me, America’s delis are, in the very best sense of the word, museums—collectively, a sprawling network of cultural institutions in which we can view and sample the edible artifacts that evolved within one particular New World immigrant population. As they surged ashore in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Jews of Europe, and of Eastern Europe in particular, brought with them a host of gastronomic preferences, kitchen techniques, lore, foods permitted and foods not permitted, and theories as to what constitutes a fit and proper diet. Romanians and Poles, Russians, Latvians and Lithuanians, Hungarians, Czechs, Germans, French, and other immigrants from dozens of nationalities settled in, each with its own history and its own ideas of what it wanted to find in markets and what it expected to encounter on its tables.

  Almost from day one, processes of cultural change went, inevitably, to work. For example, the newcomers, living cheek by jowl with each other, were exposed to each other’s tastes and ways of preparing food. Further, they found themselves, in their various communities, spread from New York and Boston to Galveston, Santa Fe, and Seattle, brought face to face with local traditions, which would come, in time, to exert influences on the way that they ate. And, beyond all that, they discovered that the range of ingredients available to them was quite different from that of the world they had left behind; this, too, opened the door to change, as they were forced to find substitutes for what they could not get and to develop uses within their traditional culinary idiom for what was new.

  Although the national foods continued to have some place within the homes of the Jewish immigrants, quite early on, other contrary social forces soon came into play. As with the American population as a whole, more and more immigrant women began to work outside the home, and traditional cooking skills were rapidly diluted or even lost. And the broader society, anxious to assimilate the new arrivals, took steps that served to accelerate the process of acculturation. Public schools began to provide lunches to the children of poorer immigrant families, and the food they served was mainstream American—tomato soup and macaroni and cheese, not borscht or knishes. The emergent field of home economics offered courses—for adults and for children in the schools—that stressed American-style food. And cookbooks, such as the Settlement Cookbook, intended for the use of the newcomers, offered a mix of American home cooking and largely homogenized European dishes, most not identifiable with any particular tradition.

  By World War I, although the tastes and the food memories remained in the immigrant communities, many women could no longer reproduce the old-time dishes, and more and more the specialties they knew were available only from butchers, bakers, and fish-mongers, and in a breed of retail shops known as “appetizing stores” or delicatessens. These outlets produced (or acquired from producers) their own versions of everything from kishke and pastrami to smoked whitefish, baked farmer cheese dotted with black pepper, and rugelach filled with walnuts and cinnamon. In time, such foods were also increasingly to be had in restaurants or at catered celebrations.

  These new channels of accessibility were certainly of real value in preserving what might have been lost completely, but at the same time the entire body of foods was taking on a new character. First, most of the new entrepreneurs were not particularly concerned with the regional and local differences that had served to make Jewish food a richly varied folk cuisine. The resulting “deli food” was a little bit of Romanian, a little bit of Polish—an amalgam of food traditions, perceived broadly as Jewish but not further identified. Second, this generalizing process was accompanied by the active incorporation of elements taken from the culinary milieu of the host country—foods that did not originate in the world of the Jewish Europe but were nonetheless welcomed by the nostalgia-seeking second generation with the kind of enthusiasm they were beginning to feel for the dishes of their parents and their grandparents. Now included on the menu could be found a welter of “deli foods” including hot dogs, Reuben sandwiches, scrambled eggs with lox, sticky buns, Danish pastry, all washed down with Dr. Brown’s Celery Tonic (later to be known as Cel-Ray). Third, by the end of World War II, one of the most fundamental features of deli—kosher observance—began to fade. In many establishments, cheeseburgers appeared on the menu, along with shrimp salad and challah French toast served with a side of bacon. A crucial link with the past was being severed.

  But something else was going on as well. Many of those who made themselves the custodians of this peculiar mishmash of “Jewish food” also did with their loosely traditional cuisine just what is done by good cooks everywhere: they sought to improve, to innovate, to bring fresh thinking to old models. Cooking does not stand still any more than does language or science or the arts. Whether passively through the natural processes of evolution or more actively by playful riffing or earnest experimentation, change does happen, and more power to the people here who are willing to try, to adventure—to look for what is better rather than for what is dutifully the same as it always was.

  So, as is true of almost every facet of our many American hyphenated cultures, pure and authentic this food is surely not. And while it is true that delis have been in decline in both number and in distinctiveness for some years, they are nowhere near dead, as this very valuable book attests. They remain with us as important museums—repositories of many of the foods of the past, from pickled tongue to chopped liver made with real schmaltz, to matzo balls, whole-sour dill pickles, herring in cream sauce, and dozens of other gastronomic treasures. They surely do offer an atmosphere of appreciation for a tradition that has earned its right to be preserved. And they do offer inspiration for a new generation to begin making these foods once again, sometimes in new and fresh ways, but also, as always, with love, with care, and with a sense of the history of an amazing migration that arrived here empty handed. And when the arrivals found out that our streets were not, in fact, paved with gold, the
y dug deep, worked hard, and brought forth gold where none had been.

  Introduction

  Why a Cookbook About Jewish Delicatessen Food?

  For all my true-blue Jewish credentials, I never considered myself religious, didn’t keep kosher, and lacked even the foggiest notion about the history of the Jewish delicatessen. All I knew is that I liked the food: pastrami on rye; chewy, malty bagels with a schmear of cream cheese and topped with lox or smoked whitefish; blintzes; and potato latkes with a dab of sour cream. With the 2007 opening of Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen—co-founded by Nick Zukin and partner Ken Gordon—I had a place to go in my Portland, Oregon, hometown to indulge my deli food fancy.

  Kenny & Zuke’s fits neatly into a developing local paradigm. Budding bakers, brewers, chocolatiers, charcutiers, cheese makers, and other culinary artisans earn credibility and raves by looking back in time to rediscover traditional flavors, textures, and sensations and express their craft in small-batch, freshly made foods. They choose local ingredients whenever possible, elevating quality over convenience and mass mechanical production.

  In his book, Save the Deli, David Sax traces the rise and fall of the Jewish delicatessen. He concludes that a new breed of Jewish deli—one that looks back to the deli’s roots but is sensitive to modern dining preferences—might salvage a great, but floundering, culinary culture. Kenny & Zuke’s was not included in Sax’s book as the archetype for what a modern Jewish deli could be, but after Sax stayed and ate there for several days in a row, he extolled the deli’s virtues in later articles and on his blog. He also talked up the handful of other such modern-style Jewish delis around North America.

  The next logical step, I figured, was for someone to write a cookbook picking up where Sax left off, detailing the recipes of the modern Jewish delicatessen and placing them in their proper cultural and historical context.

  The Origin and Evolution of the Jewish Delicatessen

  As anyone who grew up steeped in Jewish culture can attest, persecution is at the heart of the Jewish experience. The customs, laws, and practices that set Judaism apart from other religions and cultures have for millennia made Jews a target of oppression, expulsion, and attack, from the Hebrews of biblical times to nearly the entire Jewish population of Europe during the Holocaust. It has also meant that Jews have moved around a lot, with small insular communities shifting from place to place over time depending on the relative tolerance of local governments and neighbors.

  The widespread persecution and resulting dispersion of the Jews have had a profound effect on Jewish culinary culture. One abiding historical theme has been impecuniosity and innovation. With limited opportunities as strangers in unfamiliar lands, Jewish populations often lived in poverty and had to make do with inexpensive ingredients and the bits and pieces left over by their betters. They also had to find ways to stretch what little was available to feed themselves and their families. Especially for the Ashkenazic Jews—those who found their way to the northerly climes of central and eastern Europe, the Slavic nations—this meant lots of potatoes, onions, and root vegetables, some dairy, and the consumption of the cheapest cuts of meat, including offal, when meat was affordable at all. Chicken and fish were favored over beef. Rye and buckwheat were primary grains because they were cheap and abundant compared to wheat. Preservation by drying, smoking, or pickling with vinegar or salt allowed foodstuffs that would otherwise spoil quickly to last longer.

  A second main theme in the development of Ashkenazic cuisine was the adaptation of local foodways while remaining faithful to kosher dietary laws. Derived from the Old Testament, kosher rules are complex and, even now, can be the subject of interpretation and disagreement. Most non-Jews are aware that pork products are strictly prohibited, but the list of restrictions and rules is much longer. Also banned are all forms of shellfish and certain fowl (sorry, no lobsters or predatory birds in the kosher kitchen), though consumption of chickens, duck, and geese is permitted. No animal blood of any sort may be consumed, so rituals and practices developed to assure that otherwise acceptable meat products are not tainted. Salting to remove residual blood and skillful knife work are the stock-in-trade of the shochet, the kosher butcher.

  Beyond the outright prohibitions, kosher foods are divided into categories of meat, milk, and pareve. Milk and meat cannot be consumed together. In fact, those who keep strictly kosher must use separate meat and milk dishes, utensils, and even storage spaces. Pareve foods are considered neither meat nor dairy and may be consumed with either. Layered atop the primary regulations are rules for certain holidays, such as no foods with leavening during the Jewish Passover holiday, and differing levels of oversight for maintaining kosher status, with the most stringent known as glatt kosher.

  As the Ashkenzic Jews moved around Europe, they drew inspiration from local specialties, substituting compliant ingredients for those they could not eat. This gave birth, for example, to the German frankfurter (vurstshtlekh in Yiddish), which ultimately developed into the all-beef hot dog. As Gil Marks says in his exhaustive Encyclopedia of Jewish Foods, “Sausages, vurst in Yiddish, became a mainstay among central European Jews.” The rarely seen today delicacy called kishke, a “classic example of Jewish soul food” according to Marks, was a kosher adaptation of a non-kosher Slavic blood and barley sausage. Derma, beef intestine, substituted for pork casing and was stuffed with a combination of meat scraps, chicken fat (schmaltz), onion, and matzo meal. Similarly, Jews in Romania borrowed local preservation techniques that relied on spice-rubbed dried meat to create the predecessor to pastrami. Jews who settled in and around the Baltic States became aficionados of the ubiquitous herring that took well to salt-preservation methods such as kippering or pickling in vinegar brine.

  When the first waves of German Jews immigrated to America in the mid- and late nineteenth century, there was no singular Jewish cuisine. But as more Jewish immigrants from throughout the conflict-torn, frequently inhospitable Slavic lands arrived, two things happened. First, a large proportion of the émigrés settled in New York City, the most expedient point of entry and already a bustling big city. Second, the distinctive dishes that had once dotted different areas of Europe began to concentrate and meld as the Jews from all over Europe came together and shared meals. The earliest Jewish immigrants crowded into the Lower East Side, eventually spreading out to the Bronx and adjacent boroughs.

  The Jewish delicatessen sprang from these fertile conditions. The term delicatessen is not unique to Jewish cuisine. Rather, it (like the food) is an adaptation, borrowing from the French and German words referring to the place where one bought délicatesse, “delicious things,” such as cured meats and cheese. The first places that called themselves delicatessens sold non-kosher German food. It is probable that a German Jew first applied the label to an emporium selling the kosher foods familiar to the newly minted Jewish-Americans.

  No one is quite sure exactly when the first New York City Jewish delicatessen opened, but there is no doubt the institution originated in New York. In all likelihood, the Jewish deli evolved from the efforts of Lower East Side residents who began selling homemade foods from their tiny tenement apartments and pushcarts. At some point, the first budding entrepreneur saw a business opportunity and moved the home or mobile operation into a storefront space.

  Isaac Gellis is commonly associated with the development of the Jewish deli. He began selling kosher deli meats to Lower East Side residents in 1872. By the end of the century, many merchants were offering smoked and cured meats and meat products encompassing the specialties of their own distinct communities in Europe alongside those borrowed from other Ashkenazic population centers. German, Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian foodstuffs might all be purchased in the same store, many of which were kosher.

  The early New York delis also served as community centers of sorts. As Gil Marks describes it, the delis “were a place where people could socialize and connect in a welco
ming familiar atmosphere. Besides the synagogue, these stores offered a singular haven where one could feel a sense of community and connection.”

  As the flood of Jewish immigration into New York continued into the 1920s, the Jewish delicatessen evolved. Some of the delis began to look less like meat shops and more like restaurants. Others that began as reliable guardians of kosher doctrine, selling only meat and no dairy, slipped their dietary bonds and sold both. In so doing, they began to break down the dividing wall between delicatessens and the “appetizing stores” that had focused on selling dairy and the neutral pareve items, including lox and bagels. These evolutionary steps naturally led to revolutionary innovations, such as the Reuben sandwich, that would have been inconceivable a few decades earlier, but that modern diners recognize as a deli standard.

  The most notable change between the two World Wars was the sheer number of establishments that opened. There were an estimated 500 Jewish delicatessens in Manhattan alone and as many as 2,000 in all of New York City during this time, among them the Hall of Fame names: Ratner’s, Lindy’s, Carnegie, and Katz’s. Simultaneously, the deli began to spread across the United States and Canada as Jews discovered there was more to the New World than New York.

  Of course the deli was popular with Jews, but that didn’t fully explain its crossover appeal to others. Ted Merwin, a Judaic Studies professor at Dickinson College, cites several reasons. One leading factor is curiosity about Jewish culture. Jewish humor, exemplified by deli workers’ well-rehearsed shtick and routinized verbal abuse of bewildered patrons, has always been a draw. Another cultural lure is an interest in the strange and unfamiliar foods of another people, much like modern Westerners seeking out Asian or Middle Eastern restaurants.

  The “touristification” of the deli, to use Professor Merwin’s phrase, also explains its popularity. Part of the standard itinerary for visitors to New York City and other cities with large Jewish populations is a visit to the local deli. There is no better example than Katz’s, which still anchors the Lower East Side corner of Houston and Ludlow streets. Katz’s opened its doors in 1888 and not only serves great deli specialties but also achieved mass notoriety for the celebrated orgasm scene portrayed there by Meg Ryan in the 1989 Hollywood hit When Harry Met Sally. (Following Ryan’s explosive demonstration, one of the best straight lines ever uttered is deadpanned by a lady at the next table, played by director Rob Reiner’s mother: “I’ll have what she’s having.”)