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Diasporic Foodways, Pickle Trends, and "Unusual" Family Traditions with Author Michael W. Twitty · Meet Me At The Deli

• Heeb Media: To meet me at the Deli, a food advice podcast where the pickles and slaw are always free. I'm Liz. And I'm Jeffrey. Every episode, we're answering your burning food and culinary questions, and we're sharing stories and insights from years working in the industry and living in our self-maged data. All right, Jeffrey, how you doing? I'm doing well. Yeah, it's summer, summer's here. Summer's here. We're in it. We're in the summer world. ⁓ well, you know, for me, the thing about summer. Is that I have this, I have a mulberry problem. ⁓ I know. I don't you know, and and it's here. So in you know, I live in Brooklyn, we have this backyard. The first time we went to see the apartment, you know, nine, eight years ago, ⁓ it was this it was, you know, I guess May or something like that. And the yard was so beautiful, and we're like, ⁓ we are gonna live in this apartment because It has a backyard. And then when we moved in, we discovered, you know, a month later that there is this giant mulberry tree in our backyard. And w which by the way, for those who don't live in New York City or live in Brooklyn, A to have a backyard and B to have a backyard with a mulberry tree, it it sounds fantastic. Sounds romantic, doesn't it? Right. ⁓ well, you know, we are we are blessed with this backyard, but there are Approximately six weeks out of the year where we can't really use the backyard because the this mulberry tree gives mulberries so generously, so and and and it is and it's such a tall tree that you actually get like pelted with the mulberries. ⁓ and if you walk out there, you're like ⁓ on a carpet of mulberries and they stain everything. And we were, we did get it. trimmed a couple years ago by a professional tree trimmer and it made a huge difference. But I will say I am I am for me, the start of summer is really the start of this mulberry experience that happens. And the hotter it gets, the more in you know, from my ⁓ the window wafting in it smells like fermented grape mulberry something. Like there's this like there's like it it feels like we have this like wine barrel in our backyard, you know, but it's mulberries I it's really colouring my experience. Well ⁓ we had different experiences. ⁓ I so I was at a wedding over over the weekend and this was thank you. It was ⁓ a a lovely couple and they had a ⁓ a traditional wedding in a synagogue in Westchester. It was a kosher wedding. So first off there was I don't know what it is about kosher caters, but there was so much food. Like incredible amounts. But was there a sushi bar? There was no sushi bar to their credit. They actually stayed on theme. They were kinda this was like a I think a higher end. Stayed on theme. They you know, they kind of were in the Central Eastern European region, some American mixed in. ⁓ but so I I went to an event before the wedding the day before, and I met these lovely folks, ⁓ a woman of ⁓ Pakistani heritage, lives in DC, and a woman of of Korean heritage who lives in LA. And I was talking with them and talking with them about about artwork. They they've heard of pastrami, but had never had it. Somehow pastrami came up. And I was somehow when you're talking to Jeffrey, Pastrami comes up. I don't know who brought it up. I don't know who brought it ⁓ we were talking pastrami and I like here I I'm like and they were visiting New York. I'm like, you gotta have pastrami. Like I said, I was giving them recommendations. We're p you know one of them was like, I don't know if I'll have time. I'm like you live in LA, go to Langer's. I like I was literally like we're talking through they have their notes app out, they're taking notes and we're talking about it. And then ⁓ and I kind of forgot I'm gonna see them the next day, right? So ⁓ but I I gave them some you know recommendations. One of them was staying near SP. I'm like, go to SP for for their pastrami. Like it it's fantastic. ⁓ we're at the at the wedding, and so there's the the ceremony that's outside, and we kind of go inside to the cocktail hour, and they have one of these like, you th those weddings with like a meat carving station. ⁓ I know. And they have like like four types of meat. There's like a there's a turkey, there's a corned beef, there's a London broil. I don't know why that was there. And then Pastrami. Pastrami. So I was like walking, looking for them, and I was finding them. And I was just like, guess what? Guess what? There's pastrami here. You know? ⁓ and I had to like this is so you and I had to warn them that two things. One, I was like, this is like we're talking like one through ten. This is a three-four on a pastrami store. But it was, but it was it was hand-carved. Yeah, it was a little thick. It was a thick cut. Like it was like too thick, you All right. But listen, it it was still lovely. But the thing I was Crazy was they had all these sauces, like a horseradish mayo sauce. There was a honey mustard. There was ⁓ some other sauce. There was no deli mustard. The deli mustard was at the hot dog station. ⁓ my gosh. So I had to direct them to go and get the pastrami, but make sure to have it at go to the mustard from the mustard from the hot dog station. I was like deep in this pastrami experience. I felt like a pastrami whisperer to these women. And like I they assured me that they would go home and like and they would go and have other pastrami experiences with rye bread. This did not have rye bread with it also. Right. It was just the carving station. There was like some French bread there. So th they they made choices. Yeah. ⁓ but I was ⁓ I was delighted to get to to share in the love of pastrami and and bring two first timers to pastrami. I I mean, Jeffrey, I love it. It's like I I'm just This story is reminding me of my story last week about a wedding and there not being that much food. And then also it's reminding me of the story that you told when you guided these guys from like Alabama, I think it was in Second Avenue Delhi to eating pastrami. So I think you actually are the pied piper of pastrami. And I'm proud of you. That means a lot. Thank you. Okay. So we We should get into it. Yeah, well we have an amazing guest today. You know, it's June, it's Pride Month. It's about to be Juneteenth. And we have the coolest guest ever, Michael Twitty. We'll talk more about him. He's a longtime friend of ours. We've been friends with him for as long as we've been in us, really. ⁓ we got some questions and we thought no one better than this guest to join us for these questions. Now he's not in New York, so he's joining us to the magic of magic. Technology. This is our our first ⁓ You know, remote drop in guest. All right. Yeah. Our guest this week, he is a culinary historian. He is a scholar. ⁓ he is a James Beard award winning author. He won the national book award. He he's got one of my favorite titles, Historic Chef. ⁓ so cool. he's the author of The Cooking Gene and Kosher Soul. These two books are Important have been very important to us for our research. I think they're really important for the conversation. So I'm he's he's he really blends so many different perspectives and always through that scholarly lens, which I know is really important to both of us. Also, don't forget recipes of the American South and rice as well. What a guy. I wanna say on a personal note that I think the first time I met Michael was me Handing out tastes demoing at Zaybars on the upper west side of New York. ⁓ what were you demoing? I ⁓ you know, you and I started Gafilteria, our company, as a gefilter fish and horseradish company. For many years, we no longer produce it, but for many years of our lives, we produced the highest end gefilter fish on the market. And one of the first places that we sold it was at Zaybars. And I remember tabling and giving out samples at Zaybars very early on, probably, you know, in two thousand twelve, maybe two thousand thirteen, the latest. And I remember meeting Michael there. And I hope I'm right that that was the first time I met him. But I remember he was like, What's up? And I'm like, who is this gay guy? I love him so much. We are best friends. And it was, you know, it was really love at first sight, I'd say. I hope he agrees. I hope you agree, Michael Well let's let's bring Michael on. ⁓ Michael Welcome to BBL. Hi, how are you? Mushlha, what's going on? How are you? I'm okay. ⁓ is my memory correct from Zabars? Yes. And that you know something I didn't remember that, but I dn now that you said it, I can see it in my head like a movie. So yeah. Right? Well I I remember hearing about you, Michael, for the first time when Liz went down to Baltimore. For a gefilterfish cook-off at ⁓ at a ⁓ at a at a museum. At the Baltimore Jewish Museum, yeah. That's right. Yeah. Jewish Museum of Maryland. I remember that. That's what it was. Yeah. And we had like a, you know, three-table gefilterfish cook-off. And I can't believe it, but that was the only time I ever did a gefilterfish cook-off in my life, which seems strange because I've made a lot of gefilterfish in my life. That probably happened at some point and then Yes, yes, yes. I believe one of the chefs did use Old Bay and I think he may have won. ⁓ Merlin. Maryland, I know. Okay. No no no. Mer Merlin. Merlin. There you go. I had I knew it. My mom's from Baltimore. My grandma's from Baltimore. My grandfather owned a bar in Baltimore. ⁓ ⁓ my uncle still live there. I got the I I'm from there. Didn't someone have a produce cart in was it that's the other side of the family. Sorry, Jeffrey. New Jersey. okay. Jewish lives, here we go. So Michael, thanks for coming on. We got some great questions today and ⁓ w I think we should just dive in. Yeah, and well and I think this is ⁓ interesting. ⁓ Michael, you you know, have real perspective on on the well the intersection of the gay, African American and Jewish world and and through your book, Kosher Soul, you really explored that. And and I I think the first question maybe is a good question ⁓ to kind of get us into your perspective on on this on this ⁓ well on the the kosher food world. So first question from Jackie J in Forest Hills, Queens. There we go. Why is professionally prepared kosher food so often worse? And more expensive than its non kosher counterparts. Kosher restaurants and catered events, on the whole, tend to be lower quality. Kosher pizza, for example, uses simple ingredients and doesn't have to be bad, but somehow usually is. I also think about the dry, crumbly kosher burgerloch from my childhood versus the French patousserie influenced versions at places like Bread's Bakery, which is a bakery in New York City. Is this quality gap part of why so many great Jewish delis that were once kosher no longer are? ⁓ so Wait, you didn't read the most exciting part. She said, Love the show. That felt self serving. But I I was it it is there. It is there. Parentheses, love the show. Okay. Okay. ⁓ so this is a this ⁓ this is your soul. This is a a particular bias and perspective here, so but but Michael, we figured we'd love to hear your thoughts on this. As somebody who grew up just outside of that, 'cause you know, D C D D C area did not have a whole lot of ⁓ The kosher grocery stores and you know, but not a whole lot of place you go eat. I think there was the one deli in ⁓ Silver Spring, but it wasn't kosher. ⁓ but having now that I've been in this kosher space for twenty five years, I can tell you there one of my the the person writing the question got it got it in big with the pizza. I just like okay, it's cheese, it's tomato sauce, and it's bread. Why y'all ⁓ Come on now. Come on now. Come on now. That that don't make no sense. And it it it bugs me, bugs me 'cause it's you know it's it's it's treated like this cheap, you know, food to throw away and it is, that's what the origins of it are. But I mean, just thinking about it when I'm at home and I usually make ⁓ pizza for ⁓ success because you know, pizza in the hut. So it's gotta gotta do it then. But also just like I'm just thinking to myself, why is this so much better? than the kosher pizza we used to get when I used to teach Hebrew school. Like I w I used to I I taught at one ⁓ taught at two reform synagogues, a conservative synagogue, and briefly the first time was at my synagogue in Merlin, Maggie V with Sephardic. And I r I remember loving it when they forwent the strictly kosher pizza for Lido's, which is, you know, As long as it was just like cheese, it was good, but it was like so much better. One time I did have a dinner in ⁓ Richmond. I'm not gonna give too many details, ⁓ cause La Shonhara, but the dinner was I d I said to them, This is what I think you should make. From the cooking jeans, from other things that okay, great. So then they try to make one of my dishes, which is a chicken which you brine with sorghum, and then you wrap in cabbage leaves and you bake it. ⁓ Right, that's right out of the WP N WPA narratives. WPA was ⁓ the Works Products Administration, which during the Depression did many activities involving gathering folklore, in addition to building dams, other technical things. And they collected over thirty five hundred, I think, narratives by formerly enslaved people who actually were enslaved. And so one woman who was from Tennessee or North Carolina talked about this chicken. And so I spent a lo spent since my teenager year trying to get this thing back to life. And so when they did it, it was not a roast chicken in the cabbage leaves with the No, it was like boneless some kind of boneless chicken loaf thing with kosher hoy sen sauce with cabbage leaves in it. And I just thought from this was the kosher. This was the kosher. Yes, it was a kosher catering company. But you know, it's like it's it's like I was watching something the other day, I go, lovely woman. Rabbitson, lovely woman, you know where from. And then of course, she has this pastrami and put mashed potato and some some some and then she says and there's a dipping sauce ⁓ god it has mayonnaise in it doesn't it the fourth food group of of neohasidim is mayonnaise for god's sakes and I'm just like wh I I I I don't understand and I don't understand because you know there is a there is a soul food equivalent which is the family that opens up the green beans as opposed to sitting at the table, the whole ritual of snapping the green beans and getting the pot liquor ready and cooking them and not overdoing them versus just the the the can and this. It's about expedience. It's about expedience and profit. I mean we are the only people in American history to my knowledge that a whole had a whole riot over pricing. You know? I mean this is and it was led by the women. Right. And so it's like what do you so I I I just want us to think about this. ⁓ maybe the solution is getting our community to do more cooking at home or even maybe forming I don't know if can they do this, have like a ⁓ a hackshored co op. That makes really good homemade food that was, you know, provides provides food for, you know, medium or small simchas or just, you know, ever you know, snacks after ⁓ shul or Hebrew school or whatever, or you know, for women's groups or your you know, golf gol whatever. Just something that makes gets the food up a little, gets a little more avodai in the food. I think that's what's missing is the avodah. Yeah, well this is a this is ⁓ well interesting. I wanna go into two things. I wanna one get into maybe some of the origins and maybe why. this may or may not be the case. But Michael, I just ⁓ if you could give us a little bit of just a little background for on on you, a little the a a a very quick snippet of kosher soul. The I'm trying to think of what that like the the what what were those things when you didn't read in like when we were younger, you didn't clean So I try to remind people that my Jewish story narrative is very complicated. I had a a a kosher conversion, even though I I would I I would rarely say, okay, I convert or whatever, because not because I'm ashamed of it. Because when people hear that, they just assume you have no connection. I've been Jewish longer than I've been not Jewish. Forty-nine now. Rabbi Shay Sri Shon Maneshana is my cousin, my blood cousin. And we figured that out through all my DNA stuff. But what got me was is that he's not the only one And there are other people in my family off the the main trunk who are black and Jewish. And when I did work with ⁓ my results on 23ME, I have a lot of cousins ⁓ who have four Jewish grandparents who are from the ⁓ have roots in the Ukraine. But I became Jewish through ⁓ Sephardic ⁓ synagogue, my rabbi and and colleagues. And that was a very soft soft thing for me. It wasn't, you know, you know, beating me over the head because it was so much a part of the community. I embraced the food world completely. But I mean ⁓ also we remember something. African Americans have had Jews of Jews who are African descent in our history, and also a many more black Muslims. And so there is a long narrative of us and choosing to eat certain foods over others, which I reference in Kosher Sol. This is this goes back to the 18th century, if not before. But to have so to say that in the Caribbean, certainly, the experience exposure to Kashmir goes goes back even further. But I'm just gonna say that we've had a long time to develop these ⁓ new food traditions. For example, a lot of black families have foregone ham hocks and go for smoked turkey. And that's that's that's now 60 years in the running, older than me. And so we've had a a lot more experience with You know, what do you do when you don't have certain things, but you want the certain kinds of flavor? And I think that's a really big part of, you know, black foodways altogether is how do I get the right flavor? How do I get that, you know, for us smoky flavors are important. ⁓ spicy flavors are important. and we've all because we were a diaspora, they o didn't always have control over where we went, what we had. we were always trying to figure out what can we exchange to make the food taste like home. And then we made home that a home. And then we you know, it's like the, you know, gumbo, right? Is okra based stew or stoop I call it. And that's coming from various fruits of West Central Africa, mixes with French and Spanish indigenous ingredients. And then that group makes the Great Migration to California. And then they add dudgeon's crab into it. Whatever we had to do to keep that main form. So then you go into kosher food in terms of the whole the industry and also just local, you know, businesses. And you know, it's it's it's also who makes the food. Who makes the food sets the sets the table for how it's gonna taste. No, I I think that's ⁓ that's a really good point too. And I I I I think that, you know, Jackie, ⁓ question askers ⁓ perspective here is one that like I I I grew up with Jerusalem pizza in New Jersey, which made terrible pizza. Like I grew up with some subpart food. But I do I still go to Rigo Park in Queens. I'll go to some of these Bukharian restaurants or these Georgian kosher ones and those places are fantastic. They're good. And fame, there's a really great kosher Persian place. There's some great kosher Persian markets in Great Neck near here. I've been out in LA. So I I don't think that ⁓ that it it actually is qu does quite represent, you know, the the all of the the breadth of kosher professional food. That said, there is a floor like a and it's quite low. Like like there is like some quite bad like like I I've been on the plane and had like a a really bad you know kosher plane meal. ⁓ Me too. and and ⁓ the ⁓ yeah like so but at the same time I I live in Crown Heights right near, you know, ⁓ Basil, which is like a you know, a fairly good you know pizza place. I don't even know if it's still around, but it was it it it when it opened, it was like doing wood fixed wood fired pizzas. So so so it is cle clear where there is that attention to detail and care. it can be so much better. I actually think it's so fascinating thinking about I I I did a lot of work in the in the vegan world for a while. I had a ⁓ a startup that was working in plant four. Plant-based dining, I saw a lot of parallels with vegan restaurants and kosher restaurants. Now there's amazing vegan food and some great vegan restaurants, but there's a lot of people who go into vegan ⁓ restaurants and vegan dining because of ideology, because they want people to eat vegan. They're not there because of culinary background, or you know, they're there because of a mission. And the mission is get people to stop eating meat. Now, I see that a lot in the kosher world too. I actually had a lot of parallels that people open restaurants. Sure, it's good business sometimes, but actually it's also because there's also So this ideology at the heart of it. The number one important thing is to keep the food kosher, not to have the food taste good. And what's so exciting to me about what's happened with some of the kind of high end kosher places, in fact in Miami, ⁓ the first kosher Michelin restaurant just opened. ⁓ it does open. It just got it just got its first Michelin story. ⁓ That a lot of the what's it influenced the kosher world or chefs who came ⁓ from the non kosher world and brought this technique, brought this experience. And so I do see that we're we're it's improving. And you see the same thing in the vegan world too. Chef people who are becoming vegan but who ⁓ know know technique, know how to cook, know how to build flavor like you were talking about, Michael. So I actually I I would challenge the question to some degree to say, like, yes, that I think that was definitely the case when I was growing up a lot, but I think it I think there has been a change, but you still go to some random kosher spot like in the middle of nowhere that like is who isn't servicing who's the clientele you might not get a great ⁓ lo main you know and and if there's low main and pizza in the same shop I would say that's pause for concern. Yeah. Don't get the sushi. Don't get the sushi. ⁓ okay, I wanna I wanna just say one last thought on I mean we could honestly, you know, y'all we could spend four hours talking about this topic, but I think that one of the most important things that is important for the people listening to understand and maybe for our question asker is that the kosher industry didn't wasn't always an industry, right? That a lot of what we're talking about is because of industrialization and packaged food. In the shuttles of Eastern Europe, in the you know, Small towns in Tunisia, in the you know, in like in the in the places where Jews traditionally lived for hundreds of you know, thousands of years. ⁓ if you you you kind of knew what was kosher and if you had a question, you went to the rabbi and that was what you did. And and you were not buying lettuce that had been checked for bugs in the grocery store. Or or let what now the Liz, the lettuce that's never seen a bug. Yeah, right. That's frightening. ⁓ You would not buy there was no place to go get pizza, you know, even like right, like you you you had the cheese from your cow from the market, right? And and people shopped in the same places, and there was it was about trust. And so I think that one of the most important things to say is that some of what ⁓ this question asker Jackie J is responding to is this industrialization of Jewish food and kashroot and and this stamp and packaging and manufacturing, that that is what we're reacting to, and and anything that That becomes ⁓ like industrialized in this way and controlled in this way, just like the FDA has to inspect food facilities or things need to be checked for gluten-free. You know, you have the stamp of that. That is part of what we're seeing here, is the is the removal from the community enforcement, right? And so I think that what I have heard about and I I cannot speak to this from the inside, but I could say from the outside, I've heard about many different things like what you described, Michael, of a co-op of of of a less formal arrangement around making Kashroot a little bit back in the community. Because we all know that in ultimately what people are try the reason that there's so much fear around what's kosher and not or what why people are not, you know, making good t Pizza is because there's somebody overseeing it. It really has to be strictly overseen. And what we need to do is bring it a little bit away from this sort of ⁓ you know an inspector with oversight and packaged food. Like we it needs to go back to the community and I think that that is why a lot of the kosher restaurants are not good. ⁓ so I think everything you're saying is true, but the context also is the industrialized food system. Listen I love it. And I just want to point out the last part of the question which we haven't answered, which is is this quality gap part of why so many great Jewish delis that were once kosher no longer are? ⁓ And I think that's a really interesting question. I I ⁓ historically actually like a lot of the delis were kosher. And so Yeah, so I so I actually think it it's not necessarily that people abandoned kosher as much as like it it's like ⁓ kosher's change. It's also very hard to have a kosher but that's a restaurant that's not glad kosher these days. It's not this highest level of kosher. And so, ⁓ but I think what you're also what you're seeing it's not necessarily this quality gap. I think it's frankly, it's the economics. It's just not it's so hard to make it work anyway as a deli to now add in this layer because deli started before kosher certification began. Existed yeah, in in the modern format that we have it. Thanks, Michael. This is a fun. We really could talk about this for a long time. This is a cool conversation. Yeah. But we must move on. We have the questions awaiting. Yes. Okay. All right, here's the next one. Does your family have any food traditions that you would consider unique? For example My dad's side of the family uses boiled potatoes and raw white onion for carpas, and also invented a condiment for gefilt fish, which is two parts matza meal, one part beet horseradish, and one part broth from the fish. This is from RELB in Brooklyn. Whoa. Okay. My grandmother, blessed memory, would always make a ⁓ I don't know, I don't want to call it a stock pot. It was never a recipe. It was everything that could go in a pot that was like odds and ends in bits. So the end of the onion didn't get wasted. The carrots, the celery, bits of greens. You know what I'm saying? Like if you're making collagen take you throw the collard green stems in there. ⁓ maybe throw a clove smash clove of garlic. And my favorite thing was she would take a a small onion and put cloves in it and throw it in the pot. And that would just cook in the back of the stove all day. And when it was changed from day to day, and then you would take that liquid and use it to make soup or sauces or whatever. And I just thought that was like I didn't realize that was like new and different. You know, we actually preserved our way of barbecuing in our family. ⁓ and so, you know, when I would time I got to being a teenager, I knew all the little tricks. I was that was I I love I still do do love to make ⁓ barbecue for me is the season between after chavo and past Sukkot. 'Cause you're outside. Think you gotta share one of those tricks with us. Is there Maryland or or Merlin style barbecue? Well they didn't c though that was no this we're talking about Alabama. Alabama. Alabama, yeah, we're talking about layers of seasoning and braising. But you know, before I heard anybody talk about a rub, I knew what that was from like I I didn't know what a rub was, but I knew that you had to season the meat a certain way and you had to wait it was eighteen hours. You know, and you had to know how to salt it ⁓ properly 'cause it'll otherwise be too salty, whatever. So, I mean, all those traditions are there, but ever since, you know, the cooking gene, the cooking gene is about giving us a blueprint for the roots of African American Southerners, you know, from Africa to America, from slavery to freedom. And so now with my younger cousins, and I have a ton of them, a many of them. I mean, I know a lot of ⁓ Jewish families, probably those that are Rooted in an immigrant generation, small pocket family, but for me, my grandfather had my father was the second of eighteen, and I am one of my grandfather's over a hundred and fifty something living descendants. So we think about it in those terms, you know, I got a lot I a lot of cuddles to reach. So I started doing things like, ⁓ we we're gonna make we're gonna make jolif rice. We're gonna make ⁓ plasas, which is sweet potato green stew. We're gonna start cooking and re re ⁓ re recombining foods based on the places in West Africa where now we know from our genetics we know we come from. And so now that's another layer on top of it. And so that's that's what it that's what it looks like for me. Okay, well, Liz, would do you have a specific ⁓ do you have a like a weird, bizarre family food tradition? I mean, I don't think I have a weird or bizarre one, but there was one that felt relevant to this question, which is the one that I married into. ⁓ the family that I have married into has a ⁓ a Passover tradition in which the days after the Seder, there's a whole bunch of special meals that are planned and so the entire week of Passover of Pesach, the family eats together, even like the extent family and the idea was that My partner's dad was a rabbi and he wanted everyone to be enthusiastic about Passover and not feel mad that they couldn't have bread. So they designed these special meals so that it was something to look forward to as opposed to something to dread that whole week, ⁓ we can't eat bread, we can't eat noodles. So they're and they're really interesting. So and they're all like plays on matzah in some of the best ways possible. So one night is this souffle. That's my favorite night. And it sort of has this like matzo meal crust. It's Cheese, spinach, and egg, and it's a gorgeous souffle, so we always have that one night. One night is making borekas out of matza meal, ⁓ out of matza with cheese in them and potato and they're like fried and baked and they're really good. One night is making kube. Like ground layout dumplings with mozz meal. So those are the three that come to mind. I think there's one more, but basically the whole week is really interesting. And I remember when I first was with my partner being like, ⁓ so after the Seder's, like, we're all hanging out all week, like that's what's going on, you know what I mean? And now I'm here for the food. And my kid really liked the souffle this year and I was very proud of it. I was pro I was like, That's my night. That's my favorite night too. You all have Very good sounding tradition. No, I thought I got an embarrassing one. I got one that's like one. Very good. Well bring us up. It takes you to Passover as well. So for me, my family. So ⁓ at the the Passover Seder, you know you have these different components of before you actually get to the final meal. Yes. And so when it comes to the egg, so how do you all eat your egg? How do you eat your egg, Liz? We don't eat the egg. Okay. Michael, how do you eat the egg? The first course the first course is hardball eggs and Salt water. Okay, so I grew up also hard boiled egg and saltwater. So my family would like break up the egg and then we have like this egg soup. ⁓ my god, one of those. You break up the egg in the salt water and you eat Yeah, so you have an egg and salt water. A lot of people just eat the like like a salted egg. That's what Michael's talking about. Yeah. But in your family But in my family, I I we all just like break up the egg and then have like this like cold egg soup. And then we like slurp this like like hard boiled yolky like like briny like liquid broth. And I loved this. I this is my f I I couldn't wait for this egg and I never had the egg in salt water at any other time. No. And this is and it was pointed out to me when ⁓ you know, ⁓ an ex, a friend came over for Seder and they're like What? What is this is crazy? And I I like finally realized, ⁓ my gosh, this is a bizarre thing. Like who's having a cold egg hard boiled egg soup? ⁓ and ⁓ I now I I I was so embarrassed by that that I I now only have deviled eggs on Passover. ⁓ Jeffrey, don't be embarrassed. But now that I'm like now that I'm coming back around and we're talking about it, like I wanna reclaim this egg soup. I want to like maybe you know, zhuzh it up a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I wanna like I wanna like a lemon or something. Yeah, yeah, like we'll make a cold egg soup that's exciting. There there are there are families in the DC area that do that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I don't know how to say that otherwise, but I should have I should have said earlier that ⁓ of course, because the whole seta plate thing, we don't have time that. But Maror on my table can be the traditional mars, right? Merwin. Yes, but it's caught collard greens. But not cooked. ⁓ collard greens. And sweet potatoes carpas. Nice. ⁓ what was the other thing? ⁓ hot pepper for Hazerit. Yeah, okay. I mean I do both but I mean African American Zeter plate and traditional ⁓ ash you know, Ashkafhardi plate. ⁓ ⁓ love that I love that also here we are in the summer talking ⁓ talking Passover. You know, Jews cannot stop talking about Passover. We cannot. Our whole lives rotate around Passover. Okay, well let's move on to it. Last question, last question. Michael, this one we thought especially if like this is great for you. Okay, so this is from Eliana in Atlanta. And she writes, I was just making pickles today from a recipe in Lizard Jeffery's cookbook and was talking about the difference between southern pickling and what I'm doing, what I'm going to call Jewish pickling, since it's Eastern European. Do you think there are certain types of vegetables or other food items that are better in one type of pickling style than the other? Okay. Yeah, I think that's a good question. But also like Let's let's make sure we explain what are these types of pickling. Yeah, yeah. And Michael might have to tell us talk us through Southern Pickling versus ⁓ expert that you guys are, but I will say this much. ⁓ based on what I've learned from you and ⁓ Sandor and ⁓ many other folks. Sandor casting the fermentation ⁓ guru ⁓ Yeah, ⁓ who wrote Wild Fermentation and the Art of Fermentation. So all of that, there was no that's ⁓ that's a big part of the contemporary food world brought in by late Generation X through ⁓ early ⁓ or late millennial is the idea that you can explain not just here's how you here it is, do that, but actually talk about why it works, what it is. you know, bringing back things that people have sort of like left behind because of more fast paced life. So I think in terms of southern pickling, ⁓ you know, I'll give you the joke that a lot of the difference here is sugar and hot pepper. And it really is because, you know, Southern people, my husband is not one of those that, you know, loves bread and butter pickles. I think it's fantastic. and then we have some e some people even make pickles that are made with ⁓ moonshine. or they're pickles like pickled okra. Or we know, these are mainly vinegar based pickles, apple cider vinegar especially, but pickled okra, a watermelon rind pickle. Uhhuh. And then of course, you know, we think it's southern, but I you know, I just wrote Recipes in the American South and you know, I always knew that it wasn't just Southern Chow Chow. Okay. So Chow Chow is ⁓ a melee of things. Onions, cabbage, hot pepper, a little sugar, a little this, a little that, that's used as a relish. in in southern food. Now of course we had cucumber based pickles, of course we had all of that. Pickled onions. sometimes the most god awful things in the world. Like in the Mississippi Delta, they love something called a cuolical. Jeff you ever heard about a cuicle before? I don't know a cuicle. What is a cuicle? okay, cool like Kool Aid. Cool like pickles. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. I've had I've had I've had Kool-Aid, ⁓ Kool-Aid pickles. And they and that they look like a ⁓ a ⁓ a personal problem in the jar, if you know what I mean. And it's just like it's just like that's kind of all in there. But I mean it's just now that Southerners, because of I think the work that y'all have done and others have done, are now beginning to look at you know, s southern pickling traditions through the same kind of lens of, all right, no now is it what what is southern, which is a which is a horrible question to be honest, but also how do we how do we know it works? Well that was a good Southern pickling overview. That was really I I learned a lot and also I think was probably really helpful for For our listeners, but we you know, we are s we specialize in Eastern European pickling, sometimes called salt water pickling. ⁓ which is this is no sugar and probably not much heat either. No pepper and probably no sugar. You know? You have you're peppercorn. Peppercorn, right, maybe a little peppercorn. Yeah, I mean I think of ⁓ I think of the Eastern European Jewish pickling, at least i i ⁓ what we kind of ⁓ think of as the the pickles you get at the deli. Like these are sour sour flavors and and ⁓ like on the sour spectrum somewhere. ⁓ but ⁓ you know there were there wasn't as much ⁓ prevalence, and this is my understanding. I had some interesting conversations with a bunch of you ⁓ followed the ⁓ the pickled city book that came out, the the these Dutch ⁓ writers, and we were talking a lot about sour. Pickling versus kind of the vinegar brine pickles that were more common in ⁓ warmer climates, and a lot of that was because of ⁓ vinegar and how vinegar ⁓ was produced in places that had big grape production, had a lot of old wine that was turned into vinegars and all these other places, whereas you know the some of those things were harder to come by ⁓ in ⁓ in in parts of ⁓ in colder climates further north. So you see this prevalence of this more sour pickling, which is also easy and simple and quite natural too. and frankly, I guess. I I I always think of it as more of a celebration of the pickle, you know, because it's about the flavors being developed through the natural bacteria as opposed to kind of being the flavor being imposed on the vegetables through the acetic acid of the beating. Outside in versus inside out. There we go. Love it. There it is. That's beautiful. I love it. We're gonna use that. We're gonna use that, Mike. We'll we'll credit you, don't worry. but I will I will say ⁓ the question is though, and like when we were working on our cookbook, this was a big question for us was like, you know, what pickles would we include and not always are our favorite versions of certain pickles. That's right. ⁓ the salt water variety. So I will say we made a few choices. One is I I happen to love a pickled watermelon, like in this classic, you know, ⁓ Russian Ukrainian ⁓ Belarusian style, you know, ⁓ I mean still and ⁓ garlic basically make like a a regular classic sour pickle but you put a w watermelon in But I just we thought that was too far like too far gone for our readers. And so we ended up going with a a pickled watermelon rind and a more southern tradition, a sweet vinegar brine. Because it's just more pleasing to eat. It's more enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah. And so even though I do love a sour watermelon pickle, and and watermelons and cucumbers are in the same family, they're cucurbids. They actually the flavors go together better than people think. Yeah. But still, ⁓ we chose that. And another one we chose, two one two others we chose, we chose beets with the vinegar brine. Yeah, beets I think can go either way. I think beets go really well in a fermented state and I think beets do really well in Vinegar as well. And then I would say for me, I think onions are the are the one thing that really does better in vinegar. Right? I I I mean you lacto fermenting onions, it's just off. It's not right. Well unless you're making like a kimchi right. If you're getting kimchi or something If you're go you're going super funk and you're going like a dry salt, like a kimchi sour cut, I think you you love those onions. But onions on their own, straight up, like I I do prefer like it's pleasing. But again, using a lighter vinegar. vinegar for me as opposed to like a harsh white vinegar which can be really intense. Or even just like a lime juice and a little bit of vinegar too. Okay. Wow, we have We've gone we've gone and we've gone far, my friends. We went around the world with you, Michael. Yes. ⁓ Michael, happy pride. You know, I'm so glad you're here with us in June, in the month of June of all months. ⁓ thanks for bringing your wisdom to this show. Thanks for weighing in. I know our listeners are gonna have fun with some of these answers. I'm gonna tell you all something really quick. I'm sad they didn't wanna do it this year because I don't know, money and issues, whatever. But ⁓ two years running we have Had a thing at the G C C in San Francisco and Wise and Sons last year did a bang up job ⁓ helping put together I laid out the menu, they helped execute it. We had a we had a we had a fun time. For June Fenth. Yes, but but it's a program we called Era of Juneteenth. So it was the that was the night before the real Juneteenth. So Arab Juneteenth and because we I said that Juneteenth is an American holiday and is Jewish Americans are Americans, we need to figure out it's not you know, I I I strongly departed from people who were just like, This is our space. Like no no no no no the minute it becomes a national holiday, you share with every other American, it becomes an opportunity. For them to learn and engage and and ask the question, Okay, how can I how can I apply these values, these lessons to my own life? So we did a a Jewish kosher and it was kosher both times. ⁓ and then ⁓ Joshua Nelson came and did a concert after the dinner. Yeah, yeah, I know Josh. Awesome. I'm telling you, that was that was like something something. This year that's a real that's like an amazing program. ⁓ and it was and was always sold out. Always sold out. Yeah. And then we had a and this year what what it was gonna do, but we didn't end up doing I'll say it for another time, was Air of Juneteenth and the theme was gonna be the ways in which black and Jewish women have used mysticism in cooking to Wow. Safeguard and protect their communities. And so it was gonna be partly based on sinners. as part of the the the the theme and work so I will save that for another year another era of Juneteenth but ⁓ if if if the occasion happens I'll try to make sure you all know ahead of time because that would be fantastic for us to collaborate and something like that. Yeah we would love to be a part of that for sure. Absolutely. ⁓ well Michael you look great it's great to see you and we will we'll be in touch. Okay. All right bye bye Michael. Bye Michael Okay, Liz, we we made it to the k fetch cvel share section. We're sliding into the vinyl seats at the deli so each of us gets the chance to kvell or kvetch about food we've been thinking about or to share something that ⁓ we found for the other one. So Liz. Go first. Me? Okay, well I feel like I always go first. You do go first a lot, yeah. Okay, well I well here so here's the deal. I unrelated to you. was looking for a special treat. One of my favorite treats at all like the delis and bodegas. This is a this is a me thing. One of my favorite candies. Now I went to CVS, I went to Fairway, I went to all these places and they did not have it. And I got very frustrated. ⁓ so I went to a ⁓ little bodega that I knew had it. I got two, one for you, one for me. and and I also wanna make sure people know about my favorite candy. Which is can you guess? Yes. Yes I could. Goldenburg's peanut chees. So I I know and ⁓ I know did you grow up with these the the way that I did? I don't know, Jeffrey. I can't remember my life before you anymore. ⁓ no, I knew about them. Okay. I don't think I grew up with them like you though. So we weren't a candy family. Yeah. So Goldenberg's peanut shoes, I wanna like say this is a ⁓ a a bar. It looks like a bar, but it has ⁓ this kind of vintage design. It says Goldenbergs on it since nineteen seventeen little star. Four, five, six. Six. There's six little bars inside. So I am obsessed with this candy. I it's this kind of regional candy, ⁓ you know, from the it's really originally from Philadelphia. In fact the barcode on the back has a skyline of Philadelphia. ⁓ my God. So cool. And so this never noticed that. I I ⁓ I'm obsessed. I have Friendships in the food world of other people similarly obsessed with peanut chews. We talk about peanut chews all the time. It is an underrated ⁓ candy, but it used to be all around New York City. And the fact that I could not find this candy was driving me nuts. And I at one point like deep, like deep dived the history of peanut chews, started in 1917, but the Goldenberg's confectionary was around since the 1890s. Romanian Jewish family. ⁓ it started as a walnut chew. It was war rations in the World War One. Do you know why? Liz, so if you open your if you open it, I'm I can't believe it's a walnut. I'm gonna open my ⁓ Okay, so for those who have never seen a peanutchew, it comes in like a tray with these like six of these little bars. Do you know, Liz, why it's like this? No. Wanted to take a guess, couldn't think of anything clever. Well first have a bite. Have a have a little peanut chew. Nineteen thirties Hollywood. You could share these at the movie theater. No. So here is this Hollywood Jewish candy company adapting to the times, creating this shareable. This is brilliant. Yeah. The one thing I love about peanut chew is the recipe has not changed at all. This version, which is the dairy free version, this is the original. It's vegan, you know, it's molasses. ⁓ peanuts and some chocolate I like they say chocolatey coating 'cause it's not actually chocolate. ⁓ and ⁓ but one of the things I love about peanut juice ⁓ the most is that they were bought by Justborn in two thousand and three, the maker of marshmallow peeps. And when they they tried to rebrand, they thought peanut juice could go national and they removed the Goldenbergs and they changed the look of it. They're like let's drop this Jewish thing. Let's go national. ⁓ ⁓ they called it Chewett's Peanut Chews and they just disappeared and for a long time. I just forgot about them. They like I they were in the stores, but I couldn't even see them because they were no longer Goldenbergs. And ⁓ and so ⁓ like it's like I forgot what the year, like two thousand eight, two thousand nine, they brought back the old vintage branding. ⁓ my god. I can't believe they never knew any of this. I know this is your favorite candy. Yeah, they brought back the Goldenbergs, peanut juice, and they just like, you know, they went all in. All in, but they like they stuck regional. They like I think they like w were growing globally at one point. Like it's just this is the regional local candy flag you're gonna find in Baltimore, you know, up to New York, Philadelphia, and like you know, some some of the folks in Florida, you know, who came from this area eat them too. Thank you, Jeffrey. I love this candy. I love how much you love this candy. I truly didn't know any of the history and I think shout out Goldenbergs. Let's let's find ⁓ Let's meet ⁓ I wanna, I wanna know. I wanna meet you guys. I wanna, I wanna have coffee. Better yet, a pastrami sandwich. You know what I mean? Because you know Goldenbergs wants a pastrami sandwich. So, what I wanted to share with you is Kvetch, Kvel, share, shameless promotion. So I'm gonna shameless promote, but there's a story about it, okay? That's relevant to you. ⁓ so it's June, it's Pride Month, and you might have seen that. The party I have been throwing for 10 years called Queer Soup Night is publishing a cookbook in January to celebrate our decades-long social justice chefy party. It's gonna be a cookbook of 50 soup recipes from chefs who have cooked for us before. We've raised, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars for amazing organizations, thrown crazy parties, built community. Check it out, Queer Soup Night. So pre-order now, everybody, because we honestly really want you to. It will make a big fucking difference. ⁓ if you order now before September. I I ordered mine. Thank you, Jeffrey. I know you did. ⁓ but the funny story about this is that in the book, I myself have a recipe. and I was trying to decide whether I should do an original recipe or a recipe from the Gefilter Manifesto, our cookbook together. And I decided to do and I and I I decided to put in the mushroom barley soup because the mushroom and barley soup in the Gefilter Manifesto is one of my favorite recipes. It's good. It's good. And I feel that it never gets the love that it deserves. So I had this chance. I'm like, I'm gonna put this in another cookbook so somebody will make this goddamn recipe. Cause you know, when you When you test the recipe and you work on it. And it's not a hard recipe. And we also we had looked through and that the team was like, ⁓ we actually only have a couple recipes with mushrooms in them, so we can, you know, we could use it. And I also was like, ⁓ I gotta like be my roots, like Eastern European. Yeah, yeah. So I was really excited. So I'm gonna include our mushroom barley recipe. I made a few tweaks. What I'm hearing is I have a recipe in the book, too. Okay, okay. Congratulations. ⁓ but here's the funny so yes, you do. ⁓ and ⁓ what's funny. It I I made a few adaptations, but what's funny is we have a recipe testing process going on. Shout out if anybody wants to test a recipe for the Queer Soup Night Cookbook. We need you for that too. And it's blind. So the people who are testing can't see whose recipe it is because we don't want anybody to be influenced or Google the person or anything. We just want you to give feedback on the recipe. So I get a text from our mutual friend Rich Semagram. Shout out to our friend Rich. And he was like, I tested a recipe for the book for the Queer Soup Night cookbook. And I was like, amazing, what recipe did you test? And he was like, the mushroom barley. And I was like, you know that's my recipe, right? And he was laughing because he had tested it for our cookbook 12 years ago, Jeffrey. He was like, I tested that recipe for your first book. And then I was given a list of 50 recipes. And I tested the same thing again. And I was like, you are like a joke about yourself in the best way possible. Like he was laughing so Did he have any notes? Barely. He was like, it was such a good recipe. I knew but he's like, I knew it seemed from like tasted familiar. And I'm like, Yeah, you've had it before when you tested it for my first cookbook. So I just thought you would re I was like, I can't wait to tell Jeffrey that story. I love it. I do think it is an underrated ⁓ It's underrated because ⁓ for those who don't think too much about mushroom barley soup, third rate soup at the deli, it's not as good as the matzabal soup, borscht usually soup superior. And one of the things we realize is that the barley can get too mushy. Too mushy. And so we kinda cook it separately and and we also really focus on dried mushrooms, bringing out that mushroom flavor. ⁓ I love that recipe. That is really funny. I I tested the recipe by the way, and I'm like, let me get as far away from you did gazpacho. Thank you for that. ⁓ but ⁓ I love that Rich did that. And Can you believe it? Amazing. Amazing. Okay, great. So we have one more bonus. Yeah. Which is that our producer Felicia brought us pickles. Not just any pickles. Yeah, so our Felicia our producer Felicia is a Very gen Z producer. So Grillo's the pickle company has a pop-up on the Lower East Side. So ⁓ you know, right in the heart of old pickle country, ⁓ there's a sweet sweet pickles books, the the the pickle book store is down there. And they ⁓ I actually knew about this because you know how that pickled city ⁓ book about ⁓ New York pickle history came out this year. Yeah. And ⁓ by this Dutch couple, the Dutch pick ⁓ the Dutch author, he messages me about every pickle happening in New York. I I literally constantly he's in my DM. I love it. I Paul, keep going. I love this. And ⁓ He's up in your DMs with pickled content. I I learned not that kind of pickle content. Yeah, I I honestly he's like he and he always thinks I'm gonna go to everything. I'm like, I I wish I had that time. But I I love he lives in Amsterdam, so he's like, I wanna be there. ⁓ so I n I knew about this pop up and and these are pickled grapes and we happen to have a recipe for pickled grapes in our cookbook. So and I I and I think you said that you've never had a pickled grape that was not one of ours. So let's I think that's true. Let's try it. Let's try it. I'm excited. Cool. It's a fun little pickle. It's very fresh. It's got a crunch. It's intense. Yeah. It's ⁓ But I like it. Yeah. I I mean it's to me, it's like a nice simple. Summery. Yeah. Well I love about a pickled grape is it's like ⁓ it's basically you get the the refreshment of having a grape and it still it gives you like really enjoyable like summer vibes, but it's got like this really lovely, like sour, like a i it it it it ⁓ it reminds me of like ⁓ like a sour fruit. Like a a fruity beer or something. Like a sour beer. Like it has those elements in the I like it. ⁓ I like it. I it it to me, I want this with cheese. Yeah, I want it on a cheese plate. I wanna like have a refreshing beverage. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well thanks, GRillos. Thank you, Felicia, for y keeping up with the trends and keeping us ⁓ on top of ⁓ pickle trends. Yeah, we need we need those Gen Zers to help us. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well we fo we really hope that folks you Will ask us your questions. Bring us your fetches for goodness sakes. I'm open to anything. ⁓ send the emails to podcast echofilteria.com. DM us on Instagram. Fill out the form in the show notes with your food and etiquette culinary queries. ⁓ this show was produced by Felicia Reich, who it is true, is Gen Z and brought us pickles today. Thank you to He Media, an independent media nonprofit producing original web series, podcasts, and live events that showcase the best of today's subversive Jewish culture. Check out their membership if you want to support independent Jewish media now. And check out the other podcast in the He Media Network, Yenta. Love you, Yenta. Sometimes Jewish, sometimes comedy, always gossip. And tell people about the show. It's the best way for us to grow and share. The clips that are up at the Heat Media and Gefilteria Instagrams. So take our answers out into the world and bring us back the leftovers. Thanks everybody. This has been a Heat Media Podcast.