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Can the Jewish Deli Be Reformed?
New York Times ^ | April 13, 2010 | JULIA MOSKIN

Posted on 04/15/2010 2:17:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway

WHEN a Jewish deli decides to stop serving salami, something is wrong in the cosmos.

At Saul’s Restaurant and Deli in Berkeley, Calif., the eggs are organic and cage free, and the ground beef in the stuffed cabbage is grass fed. Its owners, Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt, yanked salami from the menu in November, saying that they could no longer in good conscience serve commercial kosher salami.

“It’s industrially produced meat that gets blessed by a rabbi,” said Mr. Levitt, who came to Saul’s two decades ago from Chez Panisse, just down the street. “We all know that isn’t good enough.”

The two are still trying to find, or make, salami that will align with their vision of the deli of the future: individual, sustainable, affordable and ethical.

New delis, with small menus, passionate owners and excellent pickles and pastrami, are rising up and rewriting the menu of the traditional Jewish deli, saying that it must change, or die. For some of them, the main drawback is the food itself, not its ideological underpinnings.

So, places like the three-month-old Mile End in Brooklyn; Caplansky’s in Toronto; Kenny & Zuke’s in Portland, Ore.; and Neal’s Deli in Carrboro, N.C., have responded to the low standard of most deli food — huge sandwiches of indifferent meat, watery chicken soup and menus thick with shtick — by moving toward delicious handmade food with good ingredients served with respect for past and present.

“I have a dream of a multiplicity of pastramis,” said Ken Gordon, a co-owner of Kenny & Zuke’s, one of a handful of delis in the country where the pastrami is smoked over hardwood. It opened in 2007, an outgrowth of the

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Food; Society; Travel
KEYWORDS: cookery; deli; jewish
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1 posted on 04/15/2010 2:17:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Baby, let the customers decide.


2 posted on 04/15/2010 2:20:34 PM PDT by nolongerademocrat ("Before you ask G-d for something, first thank G-d for what you already have." B'rachot 30b)
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To: nickcarraway

If they can make it work at a profit and without subsidies, more power to them.


3 posted on 04/15/2010 2:20:35 PM PDT by Ronin
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To: nickcarraway

How can the New York Times run a story about Jewish delis without mentioning one of the most famous Jewish delis of all which is in New York City! Katz’s


4 posted on 04/15/2010 2:22:15 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: nickcarraway

SHOULD the deli be reformed? The free market will provide a fairly quick answer...


5 posted on 04/15/2010 2:22:15 PM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
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To: nickcarraway

Oops! They actually do mention Katz’s on page 2:

“When I see tourists going into Katz’s, I feel a kind of rage,” he continued. “This is the food of my people, and places like that are turning it into a joke.”

(Later, in a calmer frame of mind, Mr. Bernamoff allowed that the pastrami at Katz’s is “pretty good.”)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14deli.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me


6 posted on 04/15/2010 2:24:16 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: ETL

I’m guessing some of the comments in the article are meant to be a slam at places like Katz’s.


7 posted on 04/15/2010 2:25:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: 17th Miss Regt

Will there be Reformed Delis, Conservative Delis, and Orthodox Delis?


8 posted on 04/15/2010 2:26:40 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Yes, they are not what they used to be. I grew up in that neighborhood but we moved in 1970. Mostly Puerto Ricans running the deli counter now.


9 posted on 04/15/2010 2:33:59 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: ETL

10 posted on 04/15/2010 2:36:48 PM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: nickcarraway

11 posted on 04/15/2010 2:37:20 PM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: nickcarraway
“We all know that isn’t good enough.”

"We" do?

I don't care what's in it...I don't care if the little white specks are actually toenail clippings...salami tastes GOOD. This chick is whack.

12 posted on 04/15/2010 2:41:13 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

More toenail clippings for you.


13 posted on 04/15/2010 2:42:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

http://www.katzdeli.com/presentation.html

14 posted on 04/15/2010 2:45:44 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: nickcarraway

There has been Reformed Delis, Conservative Delis, and Orthodox Delis in the US since the 1910’s. My family ran several Conservative, Conservadox and Orthodox Delis in NYC and Borscht Belt back in the day, the rabbinical seal means much more than you’d imagine to certain sects in the most traditional lineages.

That being said, can’t find a Jewish deli with corned beef to compare to an Irish pub in Montclair NJ these days.

Katz’s is really sad, as is Lansky’s which has lost the plot.

Artie’s and others are using Empire brand corned beef and pastrami, which is top of the line commercial, and a pretty uniform flavor, but that’s what this article is about, the loss of craftsmanship.


15 posted on 04/15/2010 2:49:08 PM PDT by JerseyHighlander
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Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: ETL

“When I see tourists going into Katz’s, I feel a kind of rage,” he continued. “This is the food of my people, and places like that are turning it into a joke.””

What a putz.

Sounds like the idiots who complained about the Taco Bell dog as discrimination.


17 posted on 04/15/2010 2:58:10 PM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem.)
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To: nickcarraway

http://www.jwtrueth.com


18 posted on 04/15/2010 3:08:58 PM PDT by MissDairyGoodnessVT (Free Nobel Peace Prize with oil change =^..^=)
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To: MissDairyGoodnessVT

oops sorry about the spelling it’s:

http://www.jwtreuth.com


19 posted on 04/15/2010 3:11:43 PM PDT by MissDairyGoodnessVT (Free Nobel Peace Prize with oil change =^..^=)
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To: JerseyHighlander

Which Irish pub in Montclair?


20 posted on 04/15/2010 3:13:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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