Below is a conversation (two pages, numbers at the bottom at the post!) about immigration radiating from family and social history, state laws, and personal experiences, Read it, share it and leave…
Bialys (just like bagels) very popular in New York City. They're more versatile than you think! And today we're making sourdough bialys!
Three elderly Jewish men, settlers in Jerusalem, 1870 Elderly Jews at the Western, or Wailing, Wall, Jerusalem, 1880 A group of Ashkenazi jews in Jerusalem, 1885 A Jewish cobbler ready for Sabbath Eve in a coal cellar in New York, where he is living with his family. This photograph is one of a…
Die Wurzeln des Antisemitismus werden sichtbar: Aharon Appelfelds Roman "Katerina".
It is a story of tradition, of resilience and resistance, of the perseverance of the Jewish people, and of immigrants of all backgrounds.
Before I was a chef, certain food was easily understood. Roast beef was a cut of beef roasted. Boiled carrots, grilled fish needed no explanation. Other foods were a mystery. Pastrami and corned beef in particular were fascinating to me. It's delicious, but what is it? It looks like meat but is salty ,sweet, spicy, and a strange red colour no matter how long you cook it. My mom would buy it sometimes in these little boil in the bag portions from Shopsy's. It was a treat and I loved it. As a teenager if we were at a movie or something I would pick a Druxy's deli sandwich over a Big Mac whenever I could. In 1986 I moved to Kensington market and started cooking school. I began to learn things. I began to understand deli. Kensington Market through the ages Kensington market was the coolest place ever for a young chef student. In the 80's they still sold chickens, rabbits, and pigeons alive in cages. Exotic fruits and vegetables lined the streets with dried beans, spices, and coffee. Compared to North York it was like being in a strange foreign land. At lunch time I could get great cheap food in Chinatown, then buy Portuguese sausages, Jamaican hot sauce, and cowpeas to experiment with. There was also Switzer's the last of the Kensington delis. Old Kensington Market Starting in the 1920's Kensington Market was the centre of the Jewish community in Toronto and much like New York or Montreal kosher delicatessens opened up to serve the community. Shopsy's and Switzer's were two of the better known delis, but there were several others. As time went on newer immigrants moved in and much of the Jewish community moved north where a new generation of delis opened up around the area of Bathurst and Lawerence. Some delis in Toronto Switzer's was a great retro experience. Diner style booths and lunch counter. Faded autographed pictures. I don't remember the food very well, but the atmosphere was exciting. When I graduated and started making more money, I started hitting the north Toronto delis and worked my way though the menus. Corned beef at Pancer's, knish and latkes at Marky's, matzo ball soup or frankfurters and beans at Yitz's. It was all pretty great, but I still don't get gefilte fish. So what is pastrami, and why is it associated with the North American Jewish community? Pastrami is a variation on the Romanian word pastramă which indicates something that is preserved. Some of the first Jewish immigrants to New York were from Romania and they brought the recipe for this cured and smoked meat with them. In Europe this process could be applied to lamb, pork, goose, or almost any meat. It was a natural way to preserve foods before refrigeration. In America beef navel or brisket was a cheap option and the modern Americanized pastrami recipe was developed. A common occupation of Jewish immigrants was to sell prepared foods from pushcarts, and selling pastrami in a sandwich was a logical and popular choice. New York pushcart at the turn of the century German immigrants had already established Delikatessen, shops which sold prepared foods and delicacies like liverwurst, pickled herring, prepared vegetables, and cold cuts. Soon the concepts merged and the modern American deli was born. Pastrami on rye became a New York staple, and delis like Katz's and Carnagie's became internationally famous. The idea spread and delis started popping up wherever large Jewish populations settled. Montreal in particular has a strong and unique deli heritage and Montreal smoked meat is a famous variation on pastrami. Whether my recipe for pastrami is NewYork style pastrami or Montreal smoked meat style is debatable. I use the whole brisket as in Montreal, but the brine is sweeter like the New York style. Maybe it's Toronto style pastrami. I don't know, but its good. brisket brined for 11 days The recipe for pastrami starts the same way as corned beef. A raw whole beef brisket is brined in a salty sweet aromatic liquid for many days until it is preserved and pickled. At this point the meat is simmered until tender for corned beef. I brined my brisket for eleven days and used some more unique spices such as star anise and cloves in my mix, as well as sodium nitrate, a preserving agent which keeps the meat its pink colour after cooking. For pastrami a dry rub is applied to the corned beef and it is smoked for several hours. The traditional rub for pastrami is coriander seed, black pepper and garlic. I added black mustard seed, brown sugar and smoked paprika to my rub. pastrami brisket smoking I have a Bradley smoker at work so I used the apple wood bricks to smoke the brisket for about 3 hours, then slow roasted it in the smoker without bricks for another 8 hours. The first time I tried making pastrami I smoked it the whole time it was too strong, so I cut back the smoking time. Depending on the smoking method you use, the length of time to smoke will vary greatly, but the brisket will need approximately 12 hours of roasting at around 180°F to be cooked and tender. spices for pastrami rub The finished product was great. Maybe a bit crumbly and salty at the thin end of the brisket, but in general it sliced and tasted as good as pastrami at any deli I've been to. rachel sandwich with homemade pastrami Reuban sandwiches are a deli classic with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and thousand island dressing. A Rachel sandwich uses pastrami instead of corned beef and coleslaw instead of sauerkraut.. I served it as a special and I sold the entire brisket in one night. I saved the crumbly bits that were left over and made smoked meat poutine the next day. It's a Montreal late night specialty of french fries topped with cheese curds, pastrami and gravy. Zane Caplansky of Caplansky's Deli is one of the chefs keeping the deli tradition alive in Toronto and has his own version of smoked meat poutine using smoked meat gravy that he serves in his food truck roaming around the Toronto area. Here's a link to a short video: http://www.toromagazine.com/lifestyle/food/1dbbd7c7-49a4-9684-05b3-943d35b762c0/Caplanskys+Smoked+Meat+Poutine/ Recipe For Homemade Pastrami The Meat 1 whole beef brisket cut in half at midpoint.This is for ease of storage. The Brine: 8L water 3 cups kosher salt 4 tsp sodium nitrate 1 cup brown sugar 20 garlic cloves 1 cup pickling spice mix 10 cloves 10 piece star anise Bring the above to a boil in a pot and let cool. Place whole brisket cut in half in a non-reactive plastic or stainless steel container and cover completely with brine. The beef may float so weigh down with some plates. refrigerate for 9 to 11 days. 9 will do, but I feel the extra time gives it a more authentic texture. rinse the brisket thoroughly and apply the dry rub liberally. Dry Rub: In a food processor grind 1 cup coriander seed ½ cup black peppercorns pre-cracked ½ cup black mustard seed ¼ cup smoked Spanish paprika ½ cup brown sugar 6 clove garlic Smoking This part is a bit tricky because it depends on your smoking method. I used a Bradley smoker with apple briquettes and smoked the brisket for three hours then slow roasted at 180°F for 8 hours. If your using real wood you might be able to smoke it the whole time. The key to me is long and slow. Try to keep the temperate around 200°F. The smoke flavour should enhance the meat not over power it. If your doing this at home and can't store or smoke a whole brisket. Try to cut down the portions. Remember to keep the ratio of water to salt to sodium nitrate the same though, and be wary of the brining time for a smaller piece. It may vary by days! Hopefully you will have as much luck as I did
Jewish immigrant Bendix Hallenstein opened a general store in Invercargill in 1863 before moving to Queenstown, where he specialised in men’s clothing. He opened a chain of stores, and by 1900 there were 36 branches throughout the country. Many chain stores and large department stores ...
Over twenty years after its initial publication, Annelise Orleck's Common Sense and a Little Fire continues to resonate with its harrowing story of activism,...
Jewish peddler, New York c. 1900.
Summer is here and every Marylander knows that that means two things: piles of steamed crabs and family-size tins of Old Bay. And did you know that Maryland’s favorite spice […]
Shoppers congregate as vendors sell their wares on the sidewalk outside of haberdasheries at 57 Hester Street and 55 Hester Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York, New York, circa 1900....
In a long tradition of “persecuting the refugee,” the State Department and FDR claimed that Jewish immigrants could threaten national security
In the years before, during, and after the First World War, hundreds of young Jews flocked to Paris, artistic capital of the world and center of modernist experimentation. Some arrived with prior training from art academies in Kraków, Vilna, and Vitebsk; others came armed only with hope and a few memorized phrases in French. They had little Jewish tradition in painting and sculpture to draw on, yet despite these obstacles, these young Jews produced the greatest efflorescence of art in the long history of the Jewish people. The paintings of Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, and Emmanuel Mané-Katz, the sculptures of Jacques Lipchitz, Ossip Zadkine, Chana Orloff, and works by many other artists now grace the world's museums. As the École de Paris was the most cosmopolitan artistic movement the world had seen, the left-bank neighborhood of Montparnasse became a meeting place for diverse cultures. How did the tolerant, bohemian atmosphere of Montparnasse encourage an international style of art in an era of bellicose nationalism, not to mention racism and antisemitism? How did immigrants not only absorb but profoundly influence a culture? This book examines how the clash of cultures produced genius.
Tom Brokaw was pilloried for urging immigrants to do a better job of assimilating. But he was right, and the success of the Jewish community is proof of it.
The early days of college hoops were dominated by flashy players who were thought to be naturally suited for the game and who saw the sport as their way out of the ghetto. They're not who you suspect.
If you’re a historian, or even if you just play one on TV, you’re keenly aware that one of the convenient aspects of Jewish history is a 3,000-year-old paper trail—material that has allowed Jewish historians to poke and probe the texts of the rabbinical and intellectual elite that crafted the contours of Jewish law and …
Leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, Jews today are able to wish their friends and family a happy new year through e-cards, text messages and Facebook status updates. There was a time, though, when Jews were the most prolific well-wishers by mail. [[READMORE]] In the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. postmaster general […]
It sounds like a desperately poor place in Appalachia. But news articles from the early 1900s refer to a pocket of the Lower East Side as Poverty Hollow. “Poverty Hollow, down by the East Riv…
For my Jewish, Irish, Asian and Italian friends, let's remember:
Airs Saturday, June 25, 2016 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV
PART FIVE UPDATED BELOW – CONSOLIDATED CITYSee map below for all the locations mentioned in this story One of the truly great podcast pleasures of the past two months has been the BBC’s A History of the World In 100 Objects, a daily chronological journey through human history via carefully selected items from the British… Read More
A brief history of Jewish worship at Judaism's holiest place of prayer, where, until it came under Israeli jurisdiction, a mixing of genders was the norm
