Jewish Delis to Die For
By: Terry Barr
Tags: Food, Jewish Delis, Friendship, New York, One Table One World

It was one of those blustery March days that in New York can still feel like the dead of winter, even when the sun is shining brightly and even when the calendar is screaming SPRING. I don’t remember the year, but it must have been the early 90’s, after our first daughter was born, and certainly before tragedy struck the Deli in 1996 when founder Abe Lebewohl was murdered.

One of my oldest and dearest childhood friends, Jimbo, lived in Manhattan, and my wife graciously assented to my visiting him for a long weekend over my spring break. Jimbo will figure into many of these deli tales, even though he isn’t Jewish. He does look remarkably like Jerry Seinfeld, who has done a coffee routine with Jim Gaffigan at the new 2nd AV Deli — which you can see here at the deli’s website.

Most of my old friends from Bessemer have wide and varied culinary tastes, Jimbo’s being, perhaps, the widest and most amenable to the exotic. Jewish delis are only exotic, I suppose, to the highly Waspish. No offense, but one friend I had refused to eat corned beef because it was red. I didn’t tell him about the tongue, and certainly not about all that smoked fish.

So whatever else we decided to do on this early Friday afternoon, Jimbo suggested we grab some lunch at the 2nd Avenue Deli, in its old location down on the lower east side near the Yiddish theater district. We got a table in the Molly Picon room, and if you don’t know, Molly, a Yiddish star, once adorned an episode of “The Gomer Pyle Show,” treating Gomer, Sgt. Carter, and the platoon to a hearty meal of gefilte fish, kreplach, and chopped liver.

Seems so strange to me now.

I asked my non-Jewish mother about these dishes — none of which my Jewish father would eat — and she declared them delicious (okay, maybe not the gefilte fish).

As I said, it was pretty cold out, and as I scanned the menu — dreaming of pastrami and half-sour pickles — I saw what I had to have:

The half sandwich/soup special.

Not that I was trying to save money or my arteries, but just the sound of Matzo Ball Soup and a roasted turkey sandwich did it for me that day.

Jimbo might have ordered the half chicken plate (he’s been known to do that), and when I say half chicken, I’m talking half of a full bird. So there we were, two boys from Bessemer, basking in the luxury of an older Yiddish world.

The deli roasts its turkey every day, so I’m talking a sandwich like I normally got on Thanksgiving night: select cuts from the breast and thigh, tender and juicy, on rye bread, and I cannot remember now if I added a dab of mayo or not. My only regret was that I didn’t get the whole sandwich, though I did have more room for the half-sour pickles.

And then, the soup.

Oh My God.

You know, matzo balls soak in the chicken broth and simply acquire that soothing flavor, giving back to your body and soul all that it requires. Of course, my taste buds often demand something spicier, hotter, more of an explosion of multi-embedded tastes.

But on this day, as we could see the wind picking up out the front door, I savored the simplicity — a soothing sensation that all was well in my oh-so-privileged life.

The Matzo Ball soup was a healthy portion, my craving for more really just gluttony.

We would soon be heading out for a movie, and then meeting up with friends for dinner and social gathering (I said that only because it’s a phrase I don’t use, much less inhabit, much today).

But as we sat back after our plates were cleared, enjoying some coffee and maybe even a piece of rugalech or two, I thought of all the people who had come before us here; I thought of my own Jewish family and how many of them had passed by this restaurant, never getting to try it, and how many had never even been as lucky as I was to get to New York at all to see all there was to see, to taste the world that came before them.

I vowed then to bring my children to this deli one day. I succeeded in bringing my older daughter (who saved most of her salami sandwich for the homeless woman she saw a block away), but my younger has yet to experience this particular deli world. I’ll bring her one day, though the deli itself has relocated to the upper east side. It won’t be the same, but then, what is the same?

I’m betting though that the Matzo Ball soup is still as good as ever, and that the turkey is roasted like my mother used to make.

And though it’s only half-true and no one especially cares, as Jimbo and I left the 2nd Avenue Deli that Friday afternoon — so close to Shabbat — I felt like an exceptionally good, and very sated, Jewish boy.