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(New York Jewish Week) — It was a stupendously unhealthy concept to reach on the press preview for the New-York Historic Society’s new exhibit, “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli,” on an empty abdomen.
The exhibit — which originated on the Skirball Heart in Los Angeles and opens in New York on Friday, Nov. 11 — traces the mouthwatering historical past of the Jewish deli, starting with the primary waves of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants within the late nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. These new People created a “fusion meals born of immigration,” in line with the exhibit, adapting Japanese and Central European dishes like pastrami and knishes to satisfy Jewish dietary wants and serving all of them underneath the identical roof.
From there, the exhibit examines how delis developed and, as Jews left cities for the suburbs within the mid-Twentieth century, how they unfold from coast to coast. Counting on a mixture of archival supplies, informative panels, interactive shows and extra, “I’ll Have What She’s Having” appears uniquely designed to make guests crave a pastrami sandwich.
(Alas, whereas a tray of babka and rugelach had been laid out for the opening, there is no such thing as a precise pastrami accessible on web site.)
It’s additionally, as Louise Mirrer, the president and CEO of the New-York Historic Society stated in her opening remarks, “a visit down reminiscence lane” for any native New Yorker.
Most of all, “I’ll Have What She’s Having” establishes the Jewish delicatessen as a uniquely American phenomenon. Author Lara Rabinovitch, a curator of the exhibit who has a PhD in historical past and Jewish research, stated there have been “necessary caveats” earlier than she obtained concerned in its creation. “If we’re going to do that exhibition, it can’t be grounded in nostalgia and kitsch,” she informed me. “It must be grounded in analysis, in archival analysis, and it has to take the Jewish deli as part of the American panorama — not as a Jewish area of interest object of rarified Jewish pleasure.”
The now-shuttered Carnegie Delicatessen in New York in 2008. (Ei Katsumata/Alamy Inventory Photograph)
“As a result of, to me, and I essentially consider this, the Jewish deli is part of American tradition,” she added. “And it’s one thing that every one People participate in, in a technique or one other, whether or not it’s by way of popular culture, or by way of truly going to the Jewish deli, or working in Jewish deli.”
This Americanness is emphasised all through the exhibit, which incorporates an space devoted to Levy’s iconic “You Don’t Should Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Actual Jewish Rye” advert marketing campaign and explanations of what number of delis added a wider array of cuisines to draw extra various clients. There’s additionally a concentrate on the deli in popular culture, which incorporates costumes from the deli scenes seen on the Amazon Prime hit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Fascinatingly, one factor the exhibit doesn’t do is outline what a deli truly is. “We got here up with it as a neighborhood, a spot the place individuals collect to eat Jewish meals of 1 sort or one other, but it surely’s all the time altering,” Rabinovich stated. “I imply, everyone knows, in sure capacities, what a Jewish deli is. But it surely’s form of like pornography — it doesn’t have a definition, however you understand it if you see it.”
Living proof: This model of “I’ll Have What She’s Having” has an space devoted to dairy eating places — not one thing that most individuals would affiliate with the basic Jewish deli. (For individuals who preserve kosher, delis and dairy eating places should be saved as separate because the meat- and milk-based dishes that they serve.)
Different New York-centric particulars embody an space devoted to “Bagels Over Broadway,” analyzing the connection between iconic eateries just like the Carnegie Deli and Stage Delicatessen — each closed, alas — and the better theater neighborhood. There’s additionally an space on delis within the outer boroughs, together with Ben’s Greatest Kosher Delicatessen, which was a well-liked gathering place for Holocaust survivors in Rego Park, Queens.
Among the many compelling artifacts on show are a bottle of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda from Thirties; a meat grinder from the early Twentieth century for making kishke, salami and the like; and matchbooks from delis of yore.
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Notably notable is historic proof that New Yorkers did, in truth, hearken to Katz’s Delicatessen’s well-known slogan, “Ship a Salami to Your Boy within the Military”: On show is a 1944 letter from Italy from Non-public Benjamin Segan to his fiancée in Manhattan. “I had some tasty Jewish dishes identical to residence,” he writes, describing how his mom had despatched him a, sure, salami.
Based on the New-York Historic Society, by the Thirties, there have been an estimated 3,000 delis within the metropolis — at this time, solely a couple of dozen stay. One basic survivor is Katz’s — the setting for the well-known “When Harry Met Sally” scene that impressed the title of the exhibit. Third-generation proprietor Jake Dell informed me that “meals, tradition-slash-nostalgia, and environment,” are the explanations for his deli’s enduring attraction at this time.
Among the many gadgets on view: a uniform from the 2nd Avenue Deli, left, and costumes from the set of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” (Lisa Keys)
As a result of, right here in New York, particularly, there are quite a few choices for deli delights, from the old-school classics to newer institutions like Frankel’s in Greenpoint. I remarked to Rabinovitch that there’s something barely incongruous about standing beneath the enduring 2nd Avenue Deli signal inside a museum. Right here, its Hebraic letters are considered as an artifact; in the meantime, whereas it’s now not at its unique Second Avenue location, we might nonetheless go there for lunch.
“You don’t need to go that far,” she identified. “You possibly can go throughout the road to Nathan’s scorching canine cart. And that’s the Jewish deli, additionally. It’s actually part of the American panorama. It’s a part of the New York panorama. There’s a trope, ‘Oh, the deli is dying, you may’t get a pastrami sandwich wherever.’ We consider the deli is in every single place. It’s simply how you concentrate on it.”
As a lot as I liked this sentiment, I’m probably not a avenue meat form of individual. It was a sunny, unseasonably heat morning, and I had a horrible urge to blow off the remainder of the day, head to Katz’s for a pastrami sandwich and spend the afternoon wandering the Decrease East Facet.
However I had an article to put in writing. So I hopped on a Citi Bike, headed to midtown, and picked up a bagel that I might maintain one-handed as I wrote this story.
“‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli” is on view on the New-York Historic Society, 170 Central Park West, starting Friday, Nov. 11, 2022 by way of Sunday, April 2, 2023.
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