Green Bagels: How Sammy's Roumanian Steak House Blends Jewish Food and Nostalgia Into a Generic Ethnic Stew
Kugelmass, Jack
GREEN BAGELS Famous Sammy's Roumanian Steak House owner Stanley Zimmerman outside the restaurant in early evening. The restaurant is located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, just off Oelancey Street...
...The collage of snapshots on the walls are intended to create an atmosphere of home—not so much the homes of Sammy's patrons, but of their grandparents, the immigrant generation whose dining rooms were crowded with family mementos and snapshots...
...One evening, a group arrives and one member asks if there is room for three...
...Some come with rented vans with signs on them: 'Danger, garlic aboard...
...These people are Jewish by name...
...Patrick's Day the preceding March...
...His collar is open and the top buttons of the shirt are undone, leaving bare the upper part of his chest...
...When one stand-in finished singing "I Did It My Way," the musician sang a spoof version, "I Did It Sideways...
...All of mankind...
...The inside text is titled, "Dictionary of Basic Yiddish...
...Indeed, what is most clear is the degree to which food becomes the most salient of identifying cultural features while language and religious ritual become ever more indistinct...
...None of the plates match...
...For most people the words themselves are funny because Yiddish is funny...
...I'm shmaltz addicted...
...I couldn't watch the whole movie...
...This is what they think of...
...As the menu indicates, "Sammy's is the place where you will find people like yourself who like recalling the good old days, many who are today's judges, doctors, politicians, entertainers and journalists that think of Sammy's as 'Mom's kitchen.' " Large quantities of food, different chairs and non-matching plates suggest a return to something real as opposed to the pretense of the bourgeois homes of the well-to-do clientele...
...The strategy I've tried to use on various occasions is to stick to the appetizers of kishka (stuffed derma), kamalrt (spicy sausage), chicken livers and unborn eggs (yolks removed from a slaughtered hen), and to avoid the much pricier entrees that consist of enormous garlic-smeared steaks and chops...
...Other Jewish-style restaurants in the area are cases in point: Katz's delicatessen displays no dairy...
...The menu is "kosher style" only in the loosest definition since some of the cuts of steak are treif...
...He answers, "Which Paloma...
...On Passover, we have seders here...
...Zimmerman considers shmaltz as basic as the word "shalom...
...one of the restaurant's trademarks is to serve Premiat, a Roumanian wine, as well as bottles of Absolut vodka caked in slabs of ice...
...The nature of the liquor underlines the Roumanian or Eastern Euro-peanness of the meal...
...Although much of the decor is created by clients with the staffs encouragement, the green bagels are supplied by the owner himself...
...Page gtmel...
...It caters to people with some money to bum, and like a good and loving family it offers them a place of refuge from the outside world...
...Just tell your rabbi you ate at Sammy...
...It's not the music...
...Rosh Hashanah we're very busy...
...the gold bracelet on his wrist has the name "Stan" etched on it...
...On the contrary...
...How many people understand Yiddish...
...wearing the standard Sammy's uniform of denim jeans and a Sammy's T-shirt, he escorts this group, like any other group, to*a wobbly table covered with a white tablecloth and matching napkins (about the only things in the place that match...
...Zimmerman had him widen his scope and make the entertainment more international— a fact that is significant for understanding Zimmerman's strategy as a merchandiser of general nostalgia...
...In response to my question whether he saw himself as an ambassador for Jewish culture, Zimmerman responded, "For mankind...
...The style of the lettering and the restaurant's location, therefore, say what words are not permitted to say...
...He sings "Dovid, melech Yisrael, chat, chai, pizza pie, Coca Cola, ginger ale," and "Feelings," which he then spoofs in two versions: a Jewish one using the word tefillin in place of feelings, and what he calls a dentist's version, replacing the word "feelings" with "fillings...
...People gear themselves up to come here They put on Sammy's shirts before they come...
...The restaurant is below street level, and visitors climb down a flight of garbage-strewn stairs to enter a small, narrow lounge area with a huge collage of color snapshots depicting happy faces of couples, groups of friends and families eating at Sammy's...
...The crowding too, harks back to a past of large families in small quarters, unlike today's small families spread out in neat suburban spaces...
...Indeed, what Zimmerman has done is to exoticize Jewish cuisine, making the familiar unfamiliar and thereby A diner admires Zimmerman's jewelry...
...Inside, the message is more subtle...
...Farblundjet [lost...
...Non-Jews at Sammy's become honorary Jews at one point the entertainer asks, "How many people here are non-Jews' It's OK by the time you leave here you'll be Jewish " Or, "Tonight we're offering a two-for-one special We'll fix your nose for the price of a circumcision " But this subversion is not accidental It is motivated by the logic of carnival—the constant stream of transformations, the assault upon the high by the low Let me conclude with a contrast in anecdotes that suggests how significant the carnival-like quality is in Zimmerman's imagination...
...Although winos actively panhandle only a few feet from the restaurant's drab aluminum and glass entrance, limousines are frequently parked outside...
...Both the restaurant's location and the Hebraic-style lettering of the sign contribute to the aura of ethnic nostalgia...
...Of course, one can easily veer away from an authentic cultural context because few if any patrons are at all familiar with what that culture is, and even when they are slightly familiar with it, they are ready to accept Sammy's as a suitable substitute, a nostalgic reminder of a past from which they are largely disconnected...
...kitsch posters depicting Jewish mothers or Hebrew and Yiddish words...
...A lot of them I don't even understand," he admits, "but they look good...
...Yiddish is especially handy for satire, cynicism, familiarity, abuse, sentimentality and resignation, for a sense of high irony, and for putting people in their places and events in their perspectives . . . ." The mock bentshers fit well with the other mock component of this meal, namely the food itself...
...Shmaltz is liven it up, shmaltz it up...
...Moreover, by setting up culinary traits as the primary criteria for ethnic distinctiveness, the boundaries between ethnic groups are considerably reduced and are readily crossed...
...a Jewish eye-opener...
...Perhaps the best example of this blending is the green bagels suspended from Sammy's ceiling...
...Interspersed among the cards and the snapshots are several photographs of chassidim and Israeli soldiers praying at the Western Wall...
...Moreover, there are no fish appetizers and in that sense it does not follow or even try to reconstruct a traditional culinary aesthetic for sumptuous meals...
...They are used to patrons who come to feast...
...They had to be funny...
...They go out happy...
...Several layers of thick strands of gold circle his neck...
...And it's just a fun place...
...Two people put up their hands...
...Both signify home, the kitchen, and more particularly old kitchens—to use Zimmerman's term, "grandma's kitchen...
...It also connotes fun, and as such is a key theatrical device, cuing patrons to the fact that Sammy's is a place to "shmaltz it up," to have a good time...
...They're getting into the mood because they know it They've been to Sammy's before...
...Very cheap rent," the fact is that both the restaurant's location in the heart of a historic Jewish neighborhood and the Hebraic-style lettering of the sign are part of the same semiotic subterfuge...
...On a visit I made last October, there were still a dozen green bagels suspended from the ceiling—holdovers from St...
...I got the job...
...It has to be unique...
...Outside the restaurant hangs a hand-painted aging sign in yellow and red with Hebraic-style lettering that reads, "Sammy's Roumanian Style Restaurant...
...O.K...
...Indeed, shmaltz is literally used this way by the waiters who cast the substance irito plates of mashed potatoes and chopped liver as if these squirts were the emanations of a magic wand, while they perform a Benihana house-style act of pouring, sprinkling and mixing...
...The props serve to dramatize a key component of the American Jewish group fantasy, namely the uncanny close temporal juxtaposition of humble origins and ultimate success...
...And they are ever ready to initiate a first-time visitor into the mysteries of Eastern European cuisine—which, at Sammy's, is analogous to an overabundance of garlic...
...When someone asks him to sing "Tradition," he responds, "Did you watch Fiddler on the Roof today on television...
...2. "Family Life...
...When you hear a director say 'shmaltz it up,' it's 'bring it alive.' " Shmaltz at Sammy's is a multilevel symbol: It connotes good health and plenty—an aesthetic of the body that harks back to leaner times, financially...
...In their eyes this is their temple...
...One should note, however, that no butter is served during the meal, which conforms to dietary law, and that the milk is served only after the meat dishes leave the table—becoming, in a sense, a separate coda to the meal...
...The cover shows Sammy's logo in Hebrewlike letters framed by a filigree cartouche used in Victorian ornamentation...
...Bris [circumcision] . . . getting tipped off...
...The presence of the egg creams then, suggests an underlying theme of Sammy's, namely that of ethnic universalism or generic ethnicity...
...On top of the cigarette machine lies a pile of photocopies of a New York Times three-star rave review of the restaurant and posted on the wall are similar pieces, including what is, if you are inclined to believe the owner, a glowing review in Japanese...
...Someone suggests "La Paloma...
...In Zimmerman's words, "People put their grandchildren's picture up on the wall...
...According to him, the food has "to be a conversation piece...
...I'll say something shmutsik [dirty], I just figured out why we do so well here...
...Just tell your rabbi you ate at Sammy's...
...It's a way to bless food, to bless life and to feel happy...
...Zimmerman's assertion notwithstanding, most clients do not treat Sammy's as temple, for if they did they would never assume the informal, let-loose character that goes with the place or the intimacy forced on clients through close table positioning and joining small parties to larger tables, the banter between the musician and the crowd and the informal dress and behavior of the waiters who pat clients on the back and give them helpful tips on what to order and how to eat...
...In a moment the visitor is verbally accosted by a short, thin man in his late forties holding a champagne glass full of beer...
...A patron screams out, "Page what...
...Although Sammy's is not a kosher restaurant, it's unusual to find meat and dairy juxtaposed in such blatant fashion in Jewish-style cuisine...
...and Yonah Shimmel's, a well-known "knishery," has no meat products and reserves its non-kosher meat soups for the uptown, Lexington APRIL 1989 • MOM ENT 25 "People who tail goto temple come here for YiUsm...
...Looking suspiciously like bentshers (booklets containing the birkat hamazon, the grace after meals), and sitting right next to the shmaltz on each table, are a bunch of white, blue, green or pink pastel colored 3-by-5-inch cards...
...They have to come here where all the chairs are different...
...I never had an accent till I came to this country...
...They put Alka Seltzer or Turns on the table...
...Little wonder then, that two young Californians sitting at my table one evening insisted that they were having a New York ethnic experience rather than a Jewish one "It might just as well be Italian as Jewish," one of them remarked...
...After all, the place is called Sammy's rather than Zimmerman's or Bernstein's or Katz's...
...He is an Israeli expatriate who mentions repeatedly during his near-continuous performance that his mother thinks he's in America studying medicine Before he came to Sammy's he played Bar Mitzvahs and Jewish weddings...
...A shaneh gelechter [a good laugh] . . belching on Yom Kippur...
...Sammy's is an encounter with a trickster, and because it is, it subverts everything we hold sacred—even the very nostalgia it purveys Food, of course, is an excellent vehicle to subvert cultural pretense and to expose the vulgar and grotesque...
...They consider this almost like temple...
...There are multiple layers of humor here...
...According to Zimmerman, some patrons have a "group joke...
...Open up the dictionary...
...And he said, 'I hope I didn't insult you.' I said 'No What a great story ' " iji...
...This too is a form of ethnic hyperbole: Jews eat to celebrate, non-Jews drink This is not to say that Sammy's is dry...
...This is their escape from what sociologist John Murray Cuddihy calls "the ordeal of civility...
...Alka Seltzer stands for the play aspect of eating, in which consuming huge amounts of food, particularly spicy food, has a competitive quality to it, especially among men in large groups...
...Sammy's patrons are mishpoche, yet they are a family that shares a sense of vulgar intimacy...
...to when mom served up an appetizer of grated horseradish and chopped onions laced with chicken fat...
...Later the restaurant will be jammed...
...By putting forth culture in the form of food, Sammy's promotes an idea of ethnicity that is pure pleasure...
...Of those, how many have their own noses...
...Stay away.' " The garlic is also a reference to the "secret language" of the meal: garlic is often associated with Jews and Jewish cuisine, and this exaggerated indulgence is partly a function of taste and partly one of ethnic hyperbole...
...It's the location...
...like the lounge area, the walls are plastered with color snapshots, children's drawings and what appear to be thousands of business cards, either taped to the walls or slipped into the metal slats that support the acoustic ceiling tiles...
...Green Bagels continued from page 27 Sammy's location, in the heart of the Lower East Side, on a dirty street of warehouses and tenements, offers clients a chance to return, to relive their ethnic history as Old World immigrants in the New World, to experience their own eihnic birth and perhaps to reclaim part of what they have lost in the process of mov ing from rags to riches This is why Sammy's could not be an old tradition, why it could only be an invented one It was only through a break in the physical and social connection to the Lower East Side that there could have emeiged a nostalgic tie to the area allowing it to provide an appropriate \enue for well-heeled slumming What better indication of this phenomenon could there be than the recent tendency of Jewish restaurants in the area to ''freeze" their decors in time in an attempt to assert a look of historical authenticity Like Sammy's, all these restaurants have assumed a Disneyland-esque quality, parodies of themselves Sammy's is a 14-year-old fabricated universe (Zimmerman refers to himself as an "imag-ineer"), and what it has to offer is a past that many people think is theirs, but that no one ever had Sammy's has a great deal to do with transformations If Sammy's mocks the distinction between authentic history and nostalgic performance, it plays utter havoc with the logic of ethnic categories What better symbol could there be for this than having green bagels for St Patrick's Day' Or escargots avec shmaltz3 Or a medley of "Hava Nagila" and "Ave Maria"' But if bagels.'-can be transformed into something non-Jewish, non-Jews can be transformed too At Sammy's, non-Jews become the other and are confronted, albeit in good natured fun, with the tyranny of the minority—a sort of nightmare carnival or at least the potential to be so...
...It's not accidental that Zimmerman mentions shmaltz and seltzer at the same time as he describes the table settings and furniture...
...We have our cantor, who explains to them within five minutes what the seder is about...
...He sings "Eliyahu haNavi," another liturgical song, "Ave Maria" to the music of "Hava Nagila," then announces, "Tonight's specialty on the menu, we have escargots avec shmaltz- How many Jewish people are here tonight...
...Mtkvah [ritual bath] . a kosher aquacade...
...Then, using his free hand to form a makeshift megaphone, he shouts, "Three more goyunV On cue, the musician who is sitting behind a huge electric keyboard in the rear—just in front of an enormous fake dollar bill with Theodore HerzPs face in place of George Washington's—stops what he is playing and begins to sing "Three more goym" to the tune of "Three Blind Mice...
...It's not a traditional seder, our seder is about 20 minutes...
...Indeed, the very setting of the restaurant encapsulates that myth...
...Then he tells a bit of his life story, "I was living in Israel for 25 years...
...Zimmerman, fairly drunk, replies, "Do I have room for three...
...Inside the dining area it's hard to say what makes the strongest impression, since at first glance nothing specific catches the eye...
...Sammy's isn't so much a place to eat as it is a place to overeat...
...Shmaltz is a viscous, sickly looking substance that is best suited for kitchen use and there are probably very few restaurants on the face of the earth that would place a syrup bottle filled with liquid chicken fat on a dinner table...
...diners will still be waiting to eat at eleven o'clock...
...Knadel [dumpling] . . . delayed atom bomb...
...I told them to be funny...
...and a gold watch and monocle dangle from his neck...
...When I ask Zimmerman what Sammy's gives his clients, he responds, "Satisfaction that first they fill their bellies...
...Although Zimmerman claims that he kept the name and the sign because, "I'm not going to spend another $300 for a sign...
...I asked the manager of Yonah Shimmel's, another well-known East Side eatery, what his favorite anecdote about the restaurants was He related a series of lovely stories about clients coming to relive the past, to sit at tables and recreate courtships or touch the ancient dumbwaiter, which for many is like a family icon and a way of remembering deceased loved ones...
...It's not the food...
...On the table sit place settings and a bottle of liquid shmaltz, or chicken fat Within moments menus appear, followed by fresh thick slices of rye bread, enormous pickled peppers, green tomatoes with small cucumbers and cold seltzer in old blue or green glass bottles with rusted chrome squirting devices...
...The so-called "Jewish" dishes are really a hodgepodge of dishes extrapolated and removed from any cultural context...
...According to one reporter, Stanley Zimmerman, the owner of Sammy's, looks like Liberace, but given his miniature physique and New Jersey-Jewish macho manner, to me he looks more like a white version of Sammy Davis, Jr...
...I had suggested that he serve smaller portions and lower his prices, but he absolutely dismisses the idea...
...The price of a meal reflects the size of the portions, and few clients emerge with a bill under 850 per person...
...a needlepoint showing an Eastern European Jew dancing with a bottle in his hand, with the words "L'Chaim Sammy's," apparently a handmade gift from a satisfied customer...
...At Sammy's, patrons are invited to pour the gooey liquid over pieces of bread...
...After singing three versions of the liturgical song "Adon Olam," ranging from popular tunes to a more traditional liturgical rendition (this is Friday night), he announces, "Listen, by the time you leave this place you'll be covered for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur...
...I've been dying to do that in a restaurant for years ' And he couldn't find a place to do it in...
...A waiter takes over from Zimmerman without any prompting...
...Because they feel it's like grandma's house...
...The restaurant is located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, just off Oelancey Street Zimmerman inherited the sign as well as the name from the restaurant's previous owner...
...a subject worthy of touristic adventure both domestic and foreign, both Jewish and non-Jewish...
...It contains about 40 words divided into four categories: 1. "Maychaim of Delicacies," i.e., food, is, I assume, a combination of the Hebrew words mechaye [pleasure] and I'chaim [to life...
...Once you eat here on Monday you won't eat again until Thursday When you travel all over the world and you've been to these so-called great fancy restaurants, you go out hungry...
...He then does an imitation of Topol singing "Tradition," stops in the middle and announces, "What am I screaming for...
...Jewish Perrier on the table—that's seltzer 1937...
...You go out lacking...
...Egg creams were part of the childhood of New Yorkers and cater to the nostalgia of all but the most foreign of Sammy's clientele...
...a kosher butcher in Ireland...
...Zimmerman is aware that the portions are much larger than most people can eat and clients are expected to take food home in plastic shopping bags bearing Sammy's logo...
...So if they want Waterford or Lenox china, they go home, they have it at home...
...4. "Miscellaneous...
...Its popularity (the reverse side of the card is laid out as a postcard with space for a stamp and address, and Zimmerman gets them reprinted frequently) suggests the underlying dramatic theme of Sammy's as an enactment of American Jewish ethnicity Moreover, this card can be looked at as an ethnic text, a guidebook for people who are largely ignorant of the culture itself...
...Zimmerman is firm about the quantity of food he serves...
...And^when they're here with their grandchildren to say the Four Questions, and the matzohs are on the table—to them this is temple...
...M'Chooten [child's father-in-law] . . . ringleader...
...He sings "Maria, I've just met a boy named Maria...
...Shotcket [ritual slaughterer...
...Avenue branch...
...Don't call us, we'll call you...
...Other items attest to Zimmerman's generosity, such as banners from an Israeli handicapped basketball team that Sammy's hosts each year...
...Zimmerman's assertion that he caters to all mankind masks the underlying group in-joke quality of the experience...
...People who don't go to temple come here...
...Sammy's represents a blending of categories, a turning inside out that is central to the experience it provides...
...Despite Sammy's reputation as a place to eat, it probably wouldn't be Sammy's without its unique style of music—unique, that is, to a dining establishment...
...It's a beautiful movie...
...Here, it sits ensconced in the middle of the table long before anything else has been served and even after the conclusion of the meal...
...Is there room in the ocean...
...In fact, the front of the menu compares the entertainment to that at Jewish weddings, and it advises patrons that, "if you want to join the singing of old Yiddish songs just tear yourself away from the chopped liver and let go...
...Then fill their minds and fill their souls...
...The interior decor evokes a mood of one big family...
...It was just a meal...
...How Sammy's Roumanian Steak House Blends Jewish Food and Nostalgia Into a Generic Ethnic Stew JACK KUGELMASS Famous Sammy's Roumanian Steak House is located across the street from a small and less-than-charming park on Chrystie Street, near Delancey, on Manhattan's Lower East Side...
...This is, of course, a Jewish variant of a basic American myth...
...Although the menu tells people that by eating at Sammy's they can re-experience "the days when mom cooked up a storm, surprising her family with traditional, mouth-watering Jewish dishes," the fact is that Stanley Zimmerman's mother never cooked that way and neither did mine...
...The musician is quick to spoof even his own repertoire...
...They belong to Sammy's clients and the impression they make is peculiar, as if a gang of suburban, middle-aged Jewish graffiti artists had spent the night there...
...Sammy's generates a sense of relaxed intimacy, of being in a friendly kitchen rather than a stuffy dining room...
...They don't realize that there's a little bit more to that...
...They want a litde Yiddishkett...
...a cut-throat...
...The musician responds, "I'll do the funny stuff...
...It symbolizes heavily accented ethnic food as opposed to the bland fare that characterizes American cuisine...
...They're gearing themselves up for a good time...
...The problem isn't the lack of things to look at, it stems rather from the chaotic nature of the decorations, particularly the abundance of signs of all different sizes, shapes and colors...
...I mean, we cater to very affluent customers...
...Serious is very easy...
...And it also symbolizes a movement back in time, as the statement stapled to Sammy's menu makes clear: Dear Friend: I would like to invite you to turn the clock back...
...Oy Vey [woe is me] . . . April 15th...
...In response to a Spanish song he screams out "O/c, OleT then "Oy vey, ay vey" does "She's a Maniac" from Flashdtmce, then tries it as "Zi k meshuge," sings an Al Jolson number and a liturgical song, then announces, "Will you continue reading on page 27 [in your prayer books...
...Seltzer, the Jewish Perrier, has certain similarities to shmaltz in the sense that it has a high degree of ethnic and nostalgic connotation (it comes in old-fashioned colored glass bottles with rusted chrome squirting mechanisms...
...Mtsh-pochen [family] . . . trouble makers...
...Fatten it up at Sammy's...
...Besides, this is diet food...
...The "Dictionary of Basic Yiddish" is completely meaningless to anyone without some knowledge of Jewish-American speech and culture...
...Sammy's tells us much not only about the culture of American Jewry but of second- and third-generation Americans, whatever their ethnic backgrounds, and certainly shows the degree to which the symbolic underpinnings of ethnicity, over time, become increasingly thin with ever-decreasing knowledge...
...3. "Traditions and Customs...
...He sings a few lines from "Roumania, Roumania" in Yiddish, translates the part that says, "It was a beautiful land, Roumania," then^says, "Who gives a shit...
...In response to the same question about favorite anecdotes, Zimmerman seemed hard pressed to come up with any and could relate only the following: "A guy came in in my earlier days, I poured him the wine, he smelled it, twirled it, smelled the aroma again, tasted it, rolled it around on his pallet and spit it across the table And I said, 'Sir, is there something wrong with the wine?' He said, 'No...
...numerous gold sculpted and jeweled rings ornament his fingers...
...However, it's brought out with the appetizers (unlike the shmaltz, which never leaves the table) and comes into special prominence at the conclusion Vaf the meal when chocolate syrup and a container of milk suddenly appear and patrons are encouraged to try their hand at making chocolate egg creams...
...Choopeh [wedding canopy] . . . gallows...
...During these performances, the regular musician sits at his electric organ and makes snide comments...
...That's S300 down the tubes," and that he chose the location because of "Cheap rent...
...He is wearing a gray suit and white shirt without a tie...
...Kindly rise...
...And, since the restaurant does sport 'the word "Famous" on its T-shirt logo, there are the usual New York eatery 8-by-10 glossies of various celebrities who have eaten at the restaurant...
...Here we can see an ethnic pageant, in a sense a pilgrimage in time from riches back to rags...
...Sammy's food is a genre of cuisine that is frequently referred to as "kosher style," a term that cannot be used in New York State except by certified kosher restaurants...
...They understand Yiddish not as a language but as a secret code connected to an emotional substratum of experience—moods, sensations, exaggerated emotions and often satirical comments Just how ensconced this idea of the essential nature of Yiddish is among American Jews is evident in writer Cynthia Ozick's comment in a recent issue of the New Yorker that "It is hard to be pretentious or elevated in Yiddish and easy to poke fun...
...Various stand-ins are common fare at Sammy's, ranging from the occasional client, such as a group of black medical students who were persuaded to sing "Sunrise, Sunset," to a couple of aging opera singers who appear regularly and do a medley of liturgical and Yiddish songs and Broadway hits...
...Let me give a sampling of some of the entries...
...Although Zimmerman swears that the interior veneer walls are all that remam of the original Sammy's that he bought in 1974—a local dive known for inexpensive pastrami sandwiches and cranky Jewish waiters—you have to look hard to find the wood...
...It's ethnic...
...I had to come to Sammy's...
...Shmaltz...
...The presence of containers of milk on the table breaks a basic ethnic culinary aesthetic, a holdover from the religious taboo of mixing milk with meat...
...The evening has just begun and, since the restaurant has not filled up yet, Zimmerman can sit and kibitz with the customers...
...The terms were compiled from Zimmerman's mother, aunt and some uncles...
...Zimmerman has exoticized Jewish cuisine, maUn he familar unfanflar...
...The key to shmaltz'% prominence is the tightly intertwined temporal and ethnic connotation of a substance that has fallen out of fashion...
...But the waiters are not familiar with clients like me...
...In small quantities, yes, such as milk in the coffee after the meal, but here we have the presence of tall glasses and even whole containers of milk...
...So they are persistent, somewhat impatient, and if I am there with an unsuspecting guest— unsuspecting, that is, about the amount of food under discussion and the ultimate cost of this meal—the waiters will offer suggestions that are much too tempting to refuse...
...People who don't go to shul consider this temple...
...Sammy's entertainment consists of one full-time musician, who joined the staff within a year of the restaurant's opening...
...I will preserve the spelling as printed: "Chrane [horse radish...
Vol. 14 • April 1989 • No. 3
