Everywhere you go you find restaurants and convenience stores that call themselves delis. However, most of these are very far from what we have come to love in traditional delis.
By definition deli or delicatessen means “delicacies” or “fine foods”. The word originated from the Latin delicatus, meaning “giving pleasure, delightful, pleasing”. For centuries people found great pleasure eating the foods from the delicatessens of Europe and now North America.
In Canada and the United States most delis served sandwiches made to order behind the counter. They also prepared salads and some ethnic hot foods. Delicatessens came from a variety of cultural traditions. Most numerous were Jewish delicatessens, both kosher and “kosher style”. As a result of this, those that specialized in Italian or German cuisine were called “European Delicatessens.”
When immigrants from Europe settled in Canada and the United States they set up small stores selling pickled and smoked pork and beef. When Eastern European Jews began immigrating to New York by the thousands in the late 19th century, they carved out their own niche with Pastrami, Corned Beef, Smoked Meat and Salami. Jewish delis began to predominate. By the 1930s, New York City alone had at least 1,500 kosher and kosher style delis.
Originally, delis cured their own corned beef and pastrami, made their own pickles and used bread from a neighboring bakery. Now, few make their own ingredients. The original deli was a convenience store, a neighborhood grocer, a place to go for sandwich meats and kosher foods. It was a neighbourhood gathering place. Each deli had its own personality, a deli shtick (shtick is Yiddish meaning comic theme or gimmick). Old Jewish delis were famous for their rude waiters, the yelling back and forth behind the counter, the motion and noise of the staff preparing and delivering meals. Delis had a life and a personality that made them fun.
The best delis had a master cutter, not a slicing machine. When a brisket of beef was steamed for a long time, as with a good piece of pastrami once it has been cured and smoked, it would tear apart if not cut by hand. Unfortunately many sandwich shops use a round cut of beef rather than brisket as it is easier to slice and much less expensive.
Today, delis have to face concerns that might have been overlooked in the past. Cured meats and pickles are delicious, but they are full of salt and fat that makes them unhealthy. And preparing foods that meet traditional standards are expensive, a corned beef sandwich can fetch hefty prices of as much as $17.
The pairing of slowly steamed corned beef or pastrami brisket, hot crusty double-baked rye bread infused with caraway seeds and topped with mustard is considered by a true purist to be the perfect sandwich.
DRUXY’S takes pride in its Jewish Deli routes. We hold to the tradional way of preparing our sandwiches from briskets and slicing steaming meats to order for each sandwich. We see fun interaction with customers as key to building a lasting relationship. And we take pride in the quality of our food and how we prepare it for our customers. But we are also searching for new, fresh, quality products to compliment our traditional menu to meet the needs of toaday’s customers.
* Information in this bog has come from Wikipedia and the website of David Sax, a real deli fanatic. David authors a website, www.savethedeli.com and has written a book, Save the Deli, on the decline of the Jewish delicatessen.
