Savouring the multi-cultural food pie of New York
A culinary tour of NYC’s Lower East Side provides an insight into immigrant kitchens, cuisines and communities
There are queues outside every entrance, subway doors, elevators and of course, coffee shops. On my maiden visit to New York, I find myself marvelling at this queuing ability (minus the grumbling, cutting in line, or expletives). I willingly queue up to see the Empire State Building, to enter the Summit One Vanderbilt and at MoMA for a glimpse of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
My favourite queuing experience, undoubtedly, is one that involves food. It is at Katz’s, one of New York’s most famous food institutions. Katz is the city’s oldest diner (1888)—it made an appearance in When Harry Met Sally (1989), and is still known for serving one of the best sandwiches in the city. I am in line to try one of their signatures: pastrami on rye. The wait, like the other places in NYC, is worth it. The sandwich is delicious—tender pink meat with a slight crust, a generous amount of mustard and rye bread that is soft and yet manages to hold the meat in place, with pickles by the side.
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Pastrami on rye is not just Katz’s crown jewel, but that of most of the Jewish delis here. New York’s “signature sandwich" has two claimants for its creation—Katz and a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant named Sussman Volk at his Delancey Street butcher shop turned deli. Whatever the origin, this sandwich is possibly my greatest introduction to Jewish American cuisine. Besides Katz, I try a pastrami sandwich at Tal’s Bagels, which has an impressive array of bagel toppings. Bagels are another typical New York food, also a creation of the city’s Jewish community, with roots in Poland.
Another dish that owes its origins to Polish Ashkenazi Jews is the bialys. It is often lumped together with the bagel but is unlike it—though flat and circular, it has a small scooped out portion at the top, is baked, and very rarely is filled with the deli toppings. My introduction to bialys is thanks to Seth Zakula, my guide on the Immigrant New York Food Tour in the Lower East Side. I try the soft baked bread with a touch of garlic and onion, at Kossar’s Bagels and Bialys.
The Lower East Side (LES) in the south-eastern part of Manhattan is a neighbourhood characterised by three main immigrant communities—Italian, Chinese and Jewish. “This whole area was largely Jewish. They had to move because the city authorities bulldozed the tenements to make way for (better) housing projects," says Seth, adding that the city’s most underrated museum is the Tenement Museum. The food here doesn’t just introduce me to lesser known dishes but also tells a story of migration and a changing neighbourhood.
The first stop on this tour is Essex Market. In the 19th century, the Lower East Side was crowded with pushcart vendors and open-air markets. To ease the congestion, a series of covered markets was planned and Essex Market opened in January 1940, and it’s now received an upgrade and new location. On the first floor, is Mille Nonne, run by Pilar Rigon and her partner Bernardo Notargiacomo. “This is a zero-waste modern Italian kitchen. We want to be sustainable, make healthier, lighter and higher quality food," says Notargiacomo.
To prove their point, they hand over small, biodegradable bowls of potato gnocchi with a vegan pesto made with arugula and sunflower seeds. The dish has a gentle flavour, even if it lacks the familiar kick of a well-made pesto.
I try another Jewish creation, the knish. Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery has been a fixture in the neighbourhood since 1910 when Romanian rabbi Yonah Schimmel (who was also a pushcart vendor) opened the bakery. Over the past century, this potato snack has found fans in former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and singer Barbara Streisand, among others. I quickly become a fan too—the knishes are the size of my hand and are like a delicate hot potato mash.
Another pushcart-to-shop story is that of NYC’s oldest retail candy shop, Economy Candy. Once a shoe and hat repair shop, it had a pushcart selling candy out front. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, candy became more popular and they became a candy store. The location has changed but it remains a fascinating place with candy from around the world. I have my first taste of the Turkish halvah bar, a sweet treat made of tahini, honey, vanilla, and coated with chocolate.
Down the road, on Essex Street, is another Jewish mainstay, The Pickle Guys, a shop packed with barrels of cucumbers and olives pickling in brine with garlic, without spices or preservatives. Their classic pickles can be bought and eaten like a snack, which I do, opting for a “half sour".
As we walk around, Seth feeds me information too: LES was home to a large immigrant population through the 1800s—Italians, Puerto Ricans, Germans, Jewish and Chinese. “The latter started arriving in the mid-19th century and Chinatown started booming. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act by Congress slowed down immigration. It was around the time Chinese restaurants and teahouses started opening up leading to an explosion of Chinese places in the 1930s."
On a street lined with small shops, Seth takes me to North Dumplings, an unassuming shop with dumplings that are filling and cheap. “If you come here and get something besides a dumpling, then you deserve all the bad things that happen to you," jokes Seth.
For a sweet ending with an Italian twist, I head to Ferrara in Little Italy. An iconic bakery, Ferrara has some serious cred—it opened in 1892 to feed hungry opera goers, it is the first place in NYC to serve espresso, and is still popular for their Italian desserts. I try their signature cannoli: sweet ricotta cream spilling out of a crisp light shell, the perfect end to this culinary adventure. New York is rich in history and as a food writer, I was beyond thrilled to experience some of that in its culinary establishments and food.
Joanna Lobo is a Goa-based journalist.
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