Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli by Ted Merwin (review)

While others have written about Jewish foodways, including Hasia R. Diner, Joan Nathan, and Jenna Weissman Joselit, Ted Merwin’s Pastrami on Rye represents the first full-length treatment of the Jewish delicatessen. He deftly describes the trajectory of this American institution, from “delicatessen store” to delis, and as time went on, its decline. Geographically, we travel from New York’s East Side to Broadway then nationwide. Jewish immigrants, like others, refashioned their culinary identity in a land of abundance. He also chronicles how other foods and cuisines entered the Jewish diet. Fascinating, humorous, and written with love for his topic, this is well worth reading.

Of course, delis never had an all-Jewish clientele—we are not talking about the Chosen Peppers. I question Merwin’s contention that delis played the role of secular synagogues (85–90). If the definition hinges upon groups of people congregating on a regular basis, why not equate regular mah jongg games with Temple Sisterhoods? Or halal markets with mosques?

Additionally, Merwin’s argument making a connection among the erotic, the exotic, and the deli rests upon thin evidence, mostly cinematic. He confuses the Yiddish word “ongeshtupt” (9)—“stuffed,” as in a sack or a sandwich—with the sexual vulgarism “geshtupt.” The latter is not the same as its decidedly non-Jewish equivalent, “porked.”

Throughout, Merwin injects interesting factoids: “blue laws” dated back to Colonial times, receiving their name from the color paper upon which they were written (41); Sephardic Jews probably invented the quintessentially English “fish and chips”—Thomas Jefferson noted consuming “fish fried in the Jewish fashion.” (35, 198n68).

Not that everything in deli land was exalted. Merwin writes about Jacob Branfman and Son passing off non-kosher meat as kosher in 1933 (49). Interestingly, in 1925, Branfman Meat Products had three advertising features entitled “Delikatessen zhurnal” in the then-Socialist Forverts/Jewish Daily Forward, calling for support of the Shomer shabos movement that insisted on strict adherence to all religious laws—unlike Forverts, which never took a day of rest.

Merwin discusses the advertising campaign featuring a Native American, a Catholic altar boy and others eating a sandwich over the caption “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s” (125). This led to the November 1964 cover of the political satire magazine Monocle depicting Barry Goldwater as the one who did not have to be Jewish.

This book is a definite must for students of ethnic foodways and Jewish America. Merwin draws upon journalistic records, popular culture, foodways research, interviews, and advertisements to make his arguments. His treatment of popular culture includes discussions of “Kosher Kitty Kelly,” Mickey Katz, Alan Sherman, Woody Allen, and Rob Reiner. Merwin’s research is broad, deep and wide, scholarly, yet written in clear jargon-free language. No “postmodern pastrami” here. Overstuffed? He left me wanting more. Read and enjoy!