The Nosh #1: Coastal Food Loyalties

Jewish Delis on screen and a roast chicken that melts in your mouth.

Lately, we’ve been thinking a lot about why we like the foods we like. Is it because of where we grew up? Is it what our parents fed us? Is it because of who our  family is? This week, The Nosh is exploring foods that remind us of home. These foods are  amalgamations of moments, the slurps and chews that happen over and over again for years and decades at a time. Below, you’ll find a beloved chicken recipe and a movie moment that launched Jewish Delis into the American consciousness. Enjoy!

Today’s Menu:

This Week In Culture: Pastrami on Rye: Reflections on the Jewish Deli

Your Next Nosh:  Momma Becker’s Mayo Roasted Chicken Recipe (trust us on this one).

The Nosh Recommends: Books, Restaurants and Shows we are loving right now.

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Pastrami on Rye: Reflections on the Jewish Deli

The Jewish Delis exhibit at the New York Historical Society was called “I’ll have what she’s having.”

This, of course, is a reference to the iconic line from the friends to lovers rom-com When Harry Met Sally. The line is the culmination of a scene in Katz’s Delicatessen where Billy Crystal’s Harry and Meg Ryan’s Sally are arguing about whether or not women fake orgasms. To counter Harry’s disbelief that he has been on the receiving end of a fake orgasm, Sally throws her head back and… fakes an orgasm. After an entire minute of heaving breathing, table slapping and escalating moaning that captures the attention of the entire deli, Sally slumps over in a post-coital exhaustion. An older lady in the booth next to her, gestures to the waiter and confidently declares, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

In this case, what Sally is having is pastrami on rye plated with quartered Dill pickles, cut into spears. It’s a classic Jewish-American lunch, in a classic Jewish-American setting. This scene from When Harry Met Sally was just one in a montage of Jewish characters eating, bickering and socializing in Jewish Delis that played on a loop in the middle of the exhibit. (Another standout is the Seinfeld clip when Elaine and Jerry first learn that “yada yada” is an effective tactic to gloss over long and inconvenient parts of a story, while sipping coffee and slurping matzah ball soup.) But the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene was clearly the hook, line and crowd pleaser of the medley. On the day I visited, upon hearing the first whisper of Meg Ryan’s moan, a middle aged Jewish woman grasped her companion’s arm and shouted “Oh my God, Marcia, When Harry Met Sally is on!”, before elbowing her way through the crowded exhibit towards the television.

The Jewish Delis exhibit told the story of Jewish people who immigrated to New York from Central and Eastern Europe to America in the early 1900s, many of whom sold Jewish food staples from push carts in the streets of Lower Manhattan. These carts introduced New Yorkers to some of the city’s favorite foods including bagels, soft pretzels, pickles, smoked fish and seltzer (yes, the millennial girlies favorite fizzy water is a Jewish staple!). 

Over the 20th century, the food carts evolved into iconic brick and mortar delis like Russ & Daughters (aka the “Sturgeon Queens”) and Katz’s. These delis serve Jewish comfort foods ordered off large type, laminated menus in simple spaces with tiled floors, big leather booths and linoleum bars behind which waiters in white jackets make egg creams and greet their customers by name. The exhibit celebrated the modern Jewish-American deli as not just a place to grab a bite, but as a place to meet your friends for a weekly lunch, an integral stop on any politician’s campaign tour, and a haven for organizing and activism. (Sadly, the exhibit closed in early April, but this video is a cute little tour.)

Jewish Delis are of particular interest to Jessie and me because we are both Jewish, Jessie on her mom’s side and I on my dad’s. Neither of us are particularly religious, but Judaism means something to both of us culturally. We both had a chance to visit the Jewish Delis exhibit, and in many ways it felt like home. For me, it explained why my dad always kept a jar of sauerkraut in the fridge and why delis were the only place we ever stopped for lunch. For Jessie, it reminded her of her mom’s constant kvetching about the lack of a good deli with cold cuts on the West Coast, a remark that was just as much a statement for missing the culture of the deli as the food itself.

I feel Jessie’s mom’s laments deep in my soul. I went to college in Athens, Georgia, and one of the biggest culture shocks was the inability to find a cold cut sandwich in a deli not named after Mr. Jimmy John. It wasn’t just that Mr. John’s sandwich meats were rubbery and his bread stale, it was that they were served in a chain restaurant facsimile of the Jewish and Italian delis I grew up in (although they DID hit the spot in a drunken pinch). To be sure, I missed the fresh meat and bread of my tri-state area roots, but what I really missed was the warmth and camaraderie of the neighborhood delis that are ubiquitous in New York City. Those are spaces filled with rambunctious kids, flirty teenagers, gossiping bubbies and card playing uncles all sitting elbow to elbow with one another while noshing on dill pickles and coleslaw. They are a communal experience as much as a culinary one. But what I lost in the deli experience, I gained when I went to crawfish boils, tasted soul food and scarfed down fried chicken biscuits before Georgia football games. 

Jessie’s mom and I weren’t alone in our nostalgic longing for the culinary specialties of the other coast. (Believe me, I’ve heard from plenty of West Coast natives, that New York’s Mexican food is trash). Our loyalty to the food markers of where and how we grow up make us who we are. We also are often protective over the cuisines we grew up in proximity to, even if we don’t personally identify with them. Delis are rooted in Jewish culture, but the experience of eating in a Jewish deli is familiar to every New Yorker. 

And It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Jewish Delis exhibit was named after a line in a famous movie. Pop culture is one of the main vehicles for making a culture legible to people who aren’t a part of it. If you’re not Jewish, or if you did not grow up in a place with many Jews, When Harry Met Sally may have been your first introduction to where Jewish-American people eat and how we talk to each other. When the movie debuted in 1989, it simultaneously made Jewish girls like the museum goer and her friend Marcia feel seen while introducing their culture to the rest of the world.

Katz’s Deli has found a way to capitalize on that magical alchemy. If you are patient enough to wait amongst tourists and regulars for a table at the landmark Lower East Side deli, you will see it. Smack dab in the middle of the restaurant hangs a circular sign that reads “When Harry Met Sally…hope you had what she had! Enjoy!” just above an arrow that points down from the sign to a linoleum table where you too can throw your head back and fake an orgasm over a pastrami on rye.

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Your Next Nosh: Momma Becker’s Mayo Roasted Chicken Recipe

I wanted my first Nosh recipe to be one that is as close to my heart as a good deli pickle was to my mom’s. It was a hard choice; food is core to who I am. Before writing this I polled my friends to see which food they most associated me with. Their answers read like a timeline of my life: My childhood friends said the french toast I used to make during school breaks, Co-Op conspirators think of beans that I made during a more extreme granola phase, college friends suggested the latkes I made as a reminder of when my mom would send my entire suite presents for all 8 days of Hanukkah, and so on. However, when I think of a dish that has stood the test of time in my own kitchen, a simple, adaptable roast chicken recipe (like the one below) is unparalleled.  In the same way that Jewish delis provided a feeling of family nostalgia for my mom, this mayo roasted chicken provides that for me.

This succulent chicken  was a once-a-week staple for my mom and me. It is a juicy, tasty and tactile experience. The dry brine brings flavor to the chicken, while the mayo locks in the seasonings and the juice. But the best part of roasting this whole chicken is undoubtedly the savage experience that happens after dinner. Once our people were fed and we’d had our way with the bulk of the meat, my mom and I would retreat to the kitchen and pick apart the carcass, gossiping as we plucked the most tender bits from the chicken, dipping them in the roasting juices and popping them into our mouths.  

This sacred practice is Noshing at its core: a conversation that lingers beyond the meal and over a chicken carcass. We devoured carcasses like this for years, snacking until we found the wishbone. When we located it, we would pause and take a moment to wish for good health, a house to live in, or to win the lotto.  To this day, I love to gossip over a carcass with my closest friends. I hope you make this recipe and do the same.  

Mamma Becker’s Garlic-Mayo Roasted Chicken:

Time: 

• Day 1: 2 minutes to season, plus 24 hours to brine

• Day 2: 50 min to 1:30 for Roasting (Depending on the size of your bird)

Dry Brine Ingredients:

• 1 Whole Chicken–(you can also use this method for pieces of bone-in chicken or for the juiciest boneless, skinless chicken breast you have ever tried)

• A generous amount of salt (2-3 teaspoons for a whole chicken)

• Garlic Powder to coat

• Onion powder to coat

• (Optional) Other dry spices of your choosing

For Roasting:

• 2 tbs of your favorite Mayonnaise

• (Optional) Lemon Juice, Hot Sauce or some Fresh Herbs of your choosing for some extra zing

Instructions:

Day 1

• Pat dry and generously salt your bird all over. Don’t forget to get up in there and season the inside of the chicken cavity. This will help to make your chicken breasts tender and juicy. Gently rub salt into the skin.

• Generously sprinkle garlic powder, onion powder and any other dry spices you like over your chicken. No need to rub in further.

• Pop your seasoned chicken into a ziploc (or another container) and into the fridge. Leave it in there for 24 hours to let the dry brine do its magic tenderizing the meat and adding flavor.

Day 2: : 

• I like to take my chicken out of the fridge at least a good 20 min or so before cooking to help the bird cook more evenly. Be sure to take out any extra pots and pans that may be living in your oven before preheating to 450 degrees.

• For a more even cook, you can spatchcock your bird or tie your bird's legs together before putting it in the oven.  The NYT has a great guide on how to prep a chicken for roasting.  

• Use your hands to spread 2 tbs mayo thinly and evenly over all sides of the chicken. My mother kept mayo in the fridge for the sole purpose of roasting chickens. I promise if you are a Mayo hater like she was, you won’t taste it at all. 

• Roast chicken until a thermometer reads 165 degrees (about 11-12 minutes per pound). I like to roast chicken in a cast iron skillet or a rimmed sheet pan.

• Remove from the oven and let rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting.

• Serve!

• After serving, remove any remaining meat from the carcass with your most trusted friends and family. Save the bones for stock.

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  The Nosh Recommends:

• You Eat: At Cafe Ohlone or mak-’amham, which is as much a restaurant as a inspiring dining experience that is focused on sustaining traditional Ohlone culture and foods. Their new space is defiantly located in the outdoor courtyard of the Heart Museum of Anthropology; where many of their ancestors looted sacred objects are kept. The food Cafe Ohlone makes and the experience it provides are a reminder of the present-ness of the Ohlone people in the East Bay and the culture they help to preserve.

• You Read: Black Food Curated by Bryant Terry, a cookbook that has collected the stories and recipes of black chefs, activists and community members from the Diaspora. It's a conversation and a cookbook rolled into one. The Peach Hand Pie Recipe by Cheryl Day is 1000/10.

• You Watch: Taste the Nation on Hulu: The Queen of American food reality TV, Padma Lakshmi, is back to host the second season of her excellent show. Each episode focuses on a different immigrant group’s contributions to American food. Season 2 includes the stories of how Cambodians have redefined the cuisine of a small Massachusetts town and how the largest Nigerian population in the U.S. influences Houston’s culinary scene. 

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To Nosh On: Each issue, we will pose a question to the community… because Noshing is better with a group!

What food feels like home to you? Do you remember where and when you first time ate it? Who was there with you? Tell us below!