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I\u2019m going to marry a Jewish woman because I like the idea of getting up Sunday morning and going to the deli. \u2013 <\/em>Michael J. Fox<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n As destiny would have it, Michael J. Fox did indeed marry a Jewish woman and, one assumes, has happily enjoyed Sunday morning deli excursions ever since.<\/p>\n Rivaling the synagogue and the Jewish Community Center as a gathering place for Jewish (and other) communities, the Jewish deli, aka kosher deli, aka kosher-style deli, is now getting its due, honored with a traveling exhibit<\/a>, curated by the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Titled \u201cI\u2019ll Have What She\u2019s Having,\u201d\u2014the famous line from \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u201d (and if you\u2019re unfamiliar with it, you\u2019d better google it as I\u2019m certainly not going to tell you)\u2014is at once a celebration of Jewish food from shtetl to suburbia and a history of that ubiquitous phenomenon known as the Jewish delicatessen, the hub for casual dining in an atmosphere as salty, pickly and spicy as its menu items.<\/p>\n The exhibit features store signs, menus, advertisements, fixtures, historical footage, film and television clips, and artifacts that illuminate how delicatessens evolved from specialty stores catering to immigrant populations into the beloved national institutions they are today.<\/p>\n \u201cDelicatessen is a fusion food born of immigration,\u201d says Cate Thurston, chief curator at the Skirball. \u201cThis influx of people created, through combining foodways, a beloved American tradition that is an important part of Jewish American culture.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And not just Jewish American culture. The deli, unknown until the latter half of the 19th century, and its cuisine\u2014pastrami on rye, cheesecake, bagel with a shmear of cream cheese (or maybe two shmears this time, Bernie) lox, latkes, Ruebens, egg creams and a host of other foods\u2014have become American staples in real life as well as on the big and little screens.<\/p>\n \u201cSeinfeld,\u201d the aforementioned \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally,\u201d \u201cLaw and Order,\u201d \u201cI Love Lucy,\u201d \u201cMy Favorite Year,\u201d and myriad others have had scenes filmed in or around a deli.<\/p>\n Visitors to the exhibit are treated to a smorgasbord of historic delights. To those who\u2019ve been around for more than three generations, \u201cI\u2019ll Have What She\u2019s Having\u201d is an especially sweet (as well as sour, tart and peppery) trip down memory lane.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a sepia-tinted film of Lower East Side bakers explaining the proper technique\u2014complete with accents\u2014for making the perfect bagel.<\/p>\n There are specially commissioned sculptures immortalizing the more beloved sandwiches\u2014although a catastrophe was narrowly avoided days before the exhibit opened in Washington, DC. \u201cThe yellow mustard with the pastrami sandwich looked too much like cheese,\u201d says Thurston. (Cheese on pastrami is not kosher<\/em>.) \u201cOur preparator team was out there with an X-Acto knife a couple of days before the exhibition first opened.\u201d<\/p>\n And there are those overstuffed menus\u2014some as long as a novella\u2014with simply too many choices and whole sections devoted to salami sandwiches, omelets and other items that at another restaurant would only merit one line, but at an authentic Jewish deli are entire categories in themselves.<\/p>\n The curators wisely cover what\u2019s on both sides of the counter\u2014the food, the customers, the characters who run the delis. \u201cYou have these spaces that are just alive with people and food and talking and movement,\u201d Thurston says.<\/p>\n There\u2019s what these businesses meant to their communities as places where recently arrived immigrants could hear a familiar accent or taste a familiar dish for an hour or more. Many Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe moved to the United States and, along with their belongings, also brought their memories of home and the recipes of their regional dishes.<\/p>\n Later, Holocaust survivors both frequented delis and sometimes ran their own. In the North Hollywood Jewish enclave on Burbank Boulevard where I used to live, a Holocaust survivor ran the only strictly kosher pizza parlor and deli in town. A warm and welcoming elderly lady, she was well known and loved, and we visited her deli\u2014as did many of our neighbors\u2014more for her than for the food.<\/p>\n Admittedly, the number of Jewish delis and restaurants in the United States has declined dramatically since its mid-century peak, but Thurston doesn\u2019t believe they\u2019ll ever go away. \u201cThat thread of delis as a home away from home hasn\u2019t changed, even if delis may look a little different in the 21st century,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Permit me one reminiscence. I recall my dad taking me to the venerable deli\u2014Katz\u2019s\u2014a New York institution (as it still is) since 1888. I couldn\u2019t have been more than eight. The waiter asked me what I wanted. \u201cCinnamon toast,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n He exploded. \u201cCinnamon toast! You want cinnamon toast!?? You know what we do? We make the toast, and then we put cinnamon on it! And for THAT we charge your Pop AN EXTRA FIFTEEN CENTS!! You think he\u2019s MADE of money??! You\u2019re ordering TOAST! Plain TOAST! With cinnamon on the side so you can put it on YOURSELF!\u201d<\/p>\n He walked off, muttering, \u201cCinnamon toast!\u201d<\/p>\n Image credits: The Langer\u2019s Pastrami Platter<\/a> by Ben Brown<\/a> from Austin, TX, USA. CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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