Pastrami on Rye

American religion and Judaic studies scholar Ted Merwin’s Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli (2015) is a comprehensive historical account of the Jewish deli in America: a gathering place, a cultural touchstone, a foodie's delight, and a New York institution that has attained an almost cult-like status. The Jewish Book Council awarded Pastrami on Rye the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity.

In a preface, Merwin discusses his own history with and interest in kosher delis. He was first drawn to the subject by what he saw as the theatrical rituals that went into something as seemingly mundane as making sandwiches. There was both an art and skill to this food preparation, one which connected the contemporary Jewish person with the generations that went before and served as the lynchpin of so much of American Jewish culture. Food brought the community together, but food also linked it with its shared past. And while the delis of Merwin's youth were laidback places that precluded elitism, they were places full of abundance: an abundance of food, of community, of spirit, of quintessential American Jewishness. In that regard, Merwin understood the deli to be an embodiment of the American Dream, the idea that no matter how humble one's roots or one's life circumstances, abundance was possible.

The subsequent four sections of the book focus on the rise and fall of the Jewish deli in the United States. It starts in the distant past, one that begins in the Ancient World and wends its way through the Middle Ages to France in the years following the French Revolution; it then jumps the pond to the United States during the first waves of Jewish immigration, making a brief stop on the Lower East Side before flourishing in the outer boroughs of New York City, where much of the immigrant population lives. It expands into the city and out into the suburbs, before reaching across the expanse of the country, where it becomes a part of larger American culture.



In a way, the history of the Jewish deli is the history of American Jews. Take brine, for example. The salty liquid used to preserve and season many Jewish foods harkens back to the seas that the first wave of immigrants crossed to reach America, as well as to the coastal cities where they first made their homes: New York, Miami, and Los Angeles, to name a few. From this vantage point, cured meats and sour pickles aren't just delicious menu offerings; they're part of the heart and soul of a people.

Some of the foods most entwined with the Jewish deli—corned beef, salami, bologna, and, of course, pastrami—enjoyed a popularity in America that they never did in the delis of Eastern Europe. This illustrates how changing tastes and New World influences reshaped not only the foods the deli served but what the deli could be to a whole new population of diners, once removed from the constraints of Eastern European Orthodoxy. As a result, the deli became popular with a new and flourishing breed of American Jew—one who defined their identity in more secular ways.

Most of Merwin's scholarship focuses on the evolution of the Jewish deli in New York City. Until the 1940s, it was the place most American Jews called home. And there was an interesting division in the city's delis, a phenomenon that Merwin explores in-depth: The kosher delis were mainstays of the outer boroughs, while the kosher-style delis were more concentrated in Manhattan proper, the home of the vast majority of the city's show business culture. Merwin also looks at how the presence of these two types of delis grew ingrained in the New York City character, to the point that a pastrami sandwich became synonymous with The Big Apple—much more so than any apple ever was.



After the Second World War, the American Jewish population spread beyond New York, mostly to other major cities and suburbs across the country. As delis suburbanized, they began to fall out of favor. Some of this, Merwin says, is due to the Jewish deli falling victim to its own success. In reflecting and nurturing the community's social and financial aspirations for abundance, the deli contributed to the creation of the Jewish middle class in America. And when the middle class started growing and becoming upwardly mobile, many Jews traded in the deli for more gourmet establishments. This movement, however, did not kill the Jewish deli, though the institution continues to face challenges, most notably the daunting wave of gentrification sweeping the nation. Nonetheless, the deli survives, even if only as a throwback to simpler food and simpler times.

Pastrami on Rye includes photographs, notes on the text, a selected bibliography, and an index.