1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (116 page)

A staple of Ashkenazic Jewish home kitchens and delicatessens, this golden-brown pancake omelet set with garlic-and pepper-scented rounds of firmly chewy beef salami makes for a serious homestyle breakfast. If you gild it with dabs of cheap, brassy deli mustard and flesh it out with French fries and slices of caraway-flecked rye bread (a pickle couldn’t hurt either), it suffices as a hearty meal for any time of day.

The key here is the salami itself, which, whether kosher or kosher-style, should be a gently firm beef sausage with heady bursts of garlic, pepper, and enough dots of white fat to render it lusciously chewable. You needn’t look far to find the gold standard—Hebrew National’s version, virtually ubiquitous, is it.

Further clarification: “Salami and eggs” does not mean slices of salami thrown in with fluffy scrambled eggs. In its proper preparation, Jewish grandmothers and grandfathers (the dish is considered a mom’s-night-out specialty) cut tiny notches all around each salami slice so it will not buckle as it fries. Those slices are first browned in a little butter or, if the kitchen is kosher, in Mazola brand corn oil or margarine. Once some fat has rendered from the meat, the beaten, lightly salted eggs are poured over the sausage slices, their edges gingerly lifted to let the uncooked egg flow underneath. When the first side has turned golden brown, the pancake is flipped. The resulting concoction is a warm, salty, deeply satisfying delight.

Where:
In New York
, Katz’s Delicatessen, tel 212-254-2246,
katzsdelicatessen.com
; Carnegie Deli, tel 212-757-2245,
carnegiedeli.com
;
in Chicago
, Manny’s, tel 312-939-2855;
in Houston
, Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen, tel 713-871-8883,
kennyandziggys.com
;
in Los Angeles
, Langer’s Deli, tel 213-483-8050,
langersdeli.com
;
in San Francisco
, Wise Sons Deli, tel 415-787-3354;
in Toronto
, Caplansky’s Deli, tel 416-500-3852,
caplanskys.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Is Salami and Eggs Better Than Sex?
by Alan King and Mimi Sheraton (1985);
Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating
by Ari Weinzweig (2003);
kosherfood.about.com
(search salami and eggs).

Hot, nourishing chickpeas as street food in Baghdad.

Called
arbes
in Yiddish and
nahit
in Hebrew, sunny little golden-brown chickpeas play important and delicious roles in several Jewish celebrations; as with all beans, they are seeds, and thus regarded as symbols of plenty and regeneration. Simply boiled, drained, and tossed with a good sting of salt and lots of black pepper—and in the Middle East, with aromatic zaps of cumin and paprika—chickpeas are ritual snacks in springtime Purim festivities, at welcoming Sabbaths for week-old babies, and even at the
bris milah
, the circumcision and naming ceremony for newborn boys.

The rest of the time, their nutty, satisfying flavor and chewy texture makes them delectable snacks rich in proteins, B-vitamins, and fiber, and as addictive as salted peanuts or popcorn. (And similarly sold on the streets of many Middle Eastern cities.)

The easiest preparation starts with canned, cooked chickpeas, rinsed in a sieve under running cold water to remove all traces of canning liquid and then drained on paper towels before being spiced and salted. A somewhat better, if more time-consuming, method is to soak and boil dried chickpeas. Served on plates as part of an appetizer course, the seasoned legumes profit from a very light drizzle of olive oil, although this step should be skipped if they are to be eaten out of hand. Especially nurturing when eaten slightly warm, they can also be served slightly chilled.

Further information and recipes:
The Oxford Companion to Food
by Alan Davidson (2006);
The New York Times Jewish Cookbook
edited by Linda Amster (2003);
myjewishlearning.com
(search chickpeas for purim).
Tip:
The best brand of canned chickpeas is Goya. If you’re using dried, look for Bob’s Red Mill garbanzos.

Much like nettles and burdock, sorrel is a decidedly Old World, woodsy herb. A spinachlike, spring-blooming green member of the genus
Rumex
, it is known for its sunny sourness and delicate texture—qualities the French have embraced since the seventeenth century, when chefs relied on
oseille
to infuse the drippings of their meat roasts with a bright acidity. It was also known as a natural fit for shad, as the acid in the herb helps to dissolve the many fine bones of that freshwater river fish. “The shad reclines on its bed of sorrel like a beauty on the ottoman of her boudoir,” wrote the French author Grimod de La Reynière in his
Almanach des Gourmands
, an annual essay collection he published between 1803 and 1812. Fortunately, both shad and sorrel become available in spring.

In England, sorrel was historically combined with vinegar and sugar to make a verdant mayonnaise used as a garnish for meat. Eastern Europeans, and most especially Jews, love their sorrel in the refreshingly sour cold soup,
schav
, sometimes dubbed “green borscht” (see
listing
). Scandinavians forage for it in the wild and also pair it with fish, especially their native salmon.

When the wave of nouvelle cuisine from France hit American shores in the 1970s, new-found uses for sorrel came along with it. But the still somewhat underappreciated herb deserves more attention for its versatility. Beyond its uses in traditional meat and fish recipes, it’s also a great all-purpose fresh herb. Shredded, its leaves make an outstanding garnish for many soups and sauces, and a few of its roughly torn leaves brighten up salads, roasted potatoes, and bean dishes to great effect.

Mail order:
In spring and summer, Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
; for seeds,
richters.com
; for planting information,
growingtaste.com/vegetables/sorrel.shtml
.
Further information and recipes:
Simple French Food
by Richard Olney (1974);
From My Mother’s Kitchen
by Mimi Sheraton (1979);
Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini
by Elizabeth Schneider (2001);
cookstr.com
(search sorrel soup; shad roe idone; baked shad fillets; slow-roasted salmon with spring herb sauce; herbed green mayonnaise).
Tip:
Like spinach, sorrel tends to be sandy and requires several gentle but thorough washings to be rid of grit; it is also best to trim off its stems along with some of the hairy filaments on its leaves.

A chilled sour soup made with sorrel.

Lightly creamy and green,
schav
(pronounced shahv) is a chilly soup that will be instantly loved by some and perhaps only gradually embraced by others. Based on the long, slender spinachlike herb-vegetable we know as sour grass or sorrel, it is thickened with beaten egg yolk, its tingling sour edge mellowed by a few exquisitely aromatic Polish or Russian dried mushrooms. Those with a strong love of sour add a few drops of lemon juice or sour salt to the broth, while cooks with milder tastes opt for a pinch or two of sugar. A final glossing of sour cream just as the soup is served adds an extra luxurious touch, and garnishes of minced hard-cooked egg, cucumber, and scallions may be on hand for added interest. The verdant gazpacho is especially satisfying when eaten with dark, moist Russian or German pumpernickel—a combination that works as a refreshing lunch or light supper on a scorching midsummer day, when sorrel, botanically known as
Rumex acetosa
, is especially abundant.

Mail order:
For sorrel, in spring and summer, Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The New York Times Jewish Cookbook
edited by Linda Amster (2003);
nytimes.com
(search schav hodgson).

How did this flavorful, richly emollient, and savory cooking fat get so awful a reputation? Several unfortunate circumstances may have been at play—overuse, an oftentimes poor preparation, and a dynamite amount of
cholesterol. But the rendered (melted and clarified) poultry fat known in both German and Yiddish as schmaltz is considered an authentic, desirable ingredient throughout eastern Europe and in Alsace, where chicken, duck, and goose fats go into many pâtés and cassoulets. (An etymological aside: In German,
schmaltz
actually refers to any animal fat that has been rendered and clarified, including pork fat and even butter.)

If the recent pork belly trend is any indication (see
listing
), surely there is room in this fat-conscious but all-too-apparently fat-loving world for an occasional spread of freshly made, solidified schmaltz on a piece of matzo or challah bread, sprinkled with kosher salt, as a time-honored nosh.

Certain conditions apply. The schmaltz must be fresh and properly refrigerated. It must contain salt and should never be made with onions or garlic, as it so often is when purchased ready-made, a common error that limits its use and adds a stale taste. As further inducement, making schmaltz at home results in the additional treat of crunchy cracklings (
gribenes
in Yiddish) that family members fight over and eat like salted peanuts. Any that survive the snackers’ melee can be added to chopped chicken livers (see
listing
) or crumbled over potatoes, boiled or baked, or steamed kasha (see
listing
).