If you're from New York...

...and you're not in New York. What NY foods do you miss most? I'm taking a poll. Please let me know.

Oh yes, and if you're from New York, and you are in New York - are there still NY foods you miss because they seem to have disappeared - and if so, what are they, please?

I am noshstalgic. Are you?

Fight back Somehow - I wish I could tell you how

New York City's Health Department is at it again. This time they closed down an important, high-quality, Kosher deli on points - for the likes of (gasp)

Hanging Salami

Not washing the slicer between meats (where the two meats were both destined for a single combo-sandwich

Please see the post at Save the Deli which includes the story as originally reported in the paper.

Why don't they pick on somebody dangerous?

And bialys aren't yellow

Unlike the bagel - which most everybody at least thinks they've seen lately - the bialy is pratically unheard of outside greater NYC. But even within the city, I haven't actually seen a convincing bialy in recent memory. This is a complete mystery to me. What has happened? Before I get into that, though - perhaps a brief explanation in case there's anyone who wants to know what I'm talking about.

From Mirriam Webster:
bialy, (n): Yiddish, short for bialystoker, from bialystoker of Bialystok, city in Poland
: a flat breakfast roll that has a depressed center and is usually covered with onion flakes
This is a thoroughly inadequate definition, but it's a place to start.

I take no exception with the suggested derivation, nor with the morphology, usual meal of consumption or vegetable garnish. Hmm - that doesn't leave much to quibble with then does it? ON THE CONTRARY! That word 'roll' - it suggests all that is wrong with most present day pretenders to bialydom. I admit, the word roll covers a lot of ground and I suppose one could rationalize its use - but it leads us down the wrong path and is best avoided. For example, a roll might contain egg in the batter and thus be somewhat yellow. Bialys are not yellow. Put another way - if that thing you're looking at or holding is yellow - it is not a bialy no matter what the store or manufacturer may claim. Take it from me - I'm obsessed...I am noshstalgic. Well then, what better word? (I'd be grateful for suggestions).

A bialy is dry. Really dry. They are generally dusted with flour that remains beyond baking, and assures, should there be an errant molecule of would-be moisture nearby, complete dryness. Bialys, when sliced and toasted, have irregular holes and fissures in their structure. The dough surrounding some such bubbles can be very thin. When toasted, these create edges that can lacerate the unwary. A bialy is not dense throughout, nor even primarily (which observation gives rise to one of my numerous objections to the product from Kossar's (who seem to be nice people and emphatically claim to make them as they used to since 1936)). I have no idea if the Kossar's Biali of 1936 resembled the 6 in a bag I got at Zabar's two weeks ago, but if it did, then I would not have been buying them from Kossar's back when. But I digress...

A bialy is oniony - but not throughout. The onion is confined to the dimple (thumb depression) in the middle - and somehow its influence is (while present) very attenuated beyond the immediate center. It's a subtle onion effect. Perhaps the dryness contributes to the extreme inertness of the onion flavor?

Now this next observation (as distinct from my usual) is a matter of opinion, but: As I remember them from my youth, the bialy seemed custom made for sable. Not lox, not sturgeon, - sable.

Now in recent attempts to enjoy a bialy, I have purchased product from various bagel makers (at one time a reasonable strategy as the bagel people were also often capable bialy people), I have tried the Kossar's product, and I bought some larger, fancier product from Zabar's. Some of these offerings have been pleasant flat breakfast rolls with depressed centers and covered with onion flakes (and occasionally things like poppy seeds) to paraphrase Mirriam Webster - but sadly, none has been a bialy. Which do you suppose came first? The non-bialy bialy, or the non-definition definition?

Does anyone know where I can find a real bialy like they used to be? I'll bring the sable.
Thanks.

Bagels don't have blueberries

My jaw muscles (probably my best toned body part) are completely exhausted. I've just eaten a toasted H&H poppy seed bagel. Given a genuine bagel, this is an anaerobic activity. You will "feel the burn" if you work your way through a proper bagel without a resting period. Bagels aren't easy.

I hear a voice somewhere saying "I've never had that problem with a Duncan Donuts bagel."

And cinnamon and raisins - like blueberries - are not properly to be found in bagels. Bagels don't have blueberries.

OK - I know, they do. Even at places that should (and probably do) know better, like H&H. But despite the ready availability, I maintain that bagels don't have blueberries. The blueberry bagel demonstates the danger of popularity, of assimilation. Doubtless, many people reading this would already be lost - What's so wrong about blueberry? So pernicious?

"I like blueberry bagels. What's your problem? You're a bagel snob!" Dare I say it (that is, imagine them saying it) - "A bagel nazi!".

I admit I'm intolerant - but I feel I have just cause. It has come to this - I can get a thing called a blueberry bagel just about anywhere. (It might not actually contain real fruit, but that's a topic for another piece.) This product, this blueberry bagel, will have blue spots in it. It will have an aroma that its makers expect to be evocative of blueberries. It will be sweet.

But whether blueberry flavor or not - I cannot buy an actual bagel, something I regard as a proper bagel, almost anywhere. With rare exception, the bagel as I knew it has become unobtainable. The market is flooded with bagel shaped bread-units sold as (gasp) bagels.

The essence of bagel is not shape. The bagel contract is not fulfilled by virtue of shape alone. Proper bagels (though having a very slight sweetness on the outside) are savory, not sweet. While not a difinitive test, consider the phrase:
"What would lox do?"

Bagels, in addition to not being sweet through-and-through, are also not soft. They are not readily compressable. They can not be crushed to make a pasty substance suitable for sculpting - as can be done with white bread.

But this isn't just about bagels - the point here is that the bagel is like so many ethnic or regional specialties. It has crossed over and become a popular, broadly distributed product. And the product that so many Americans enjoy today is not true to the original product - and I miss the real thing. I am Noshstalgic.