Change or die

The Telegraph

By Ben Harris · April 14, 2010

Maybe it's because I live in New York and am therefore spoiled by the fine culinary choices at my disposal -- delis included. But this line out of The New York Times just seems wrong.

So, places like the three-month-old Mile End in Brooklyn; Caplansky’s in Toronto; Kenny & Zuke’s in Portland, Ore.; and Neal’s Deli in Carrboro, N.C., have responded to the low standard of most deli food — huge sandwiches of indifferent meat, watery chicken soup and menus thick with shtick — by moving toward delicious handmade food with good ingredients served with respect for past and present.

Low standard? Indifferent meat? Maybe in North Carolina.

True or not, some changes are afoot -- like organic eggs and pastrami from grass-fed animals. All good, of course. But whether this amounts to a "rewriting" of the deli menu, or a reinvention of classic Jewish recipes with higher end ingredients, or perhaps an effort to yuppify what was once the peasant fare of the shtetl, I cannot say.

Regardless, if you're interested in what's happening in the deli avant-garde, yesterday's piece from Julia Moskin is worth a look.