Dear Friends,
It has been a day at sea on the Seabourn Pride. We’re on our way
from Norfolk, Virginia, to Charleston, South Carolina. The weather was
stormy last night and the rock and roll of the ship did in quite a few
passengers. I gave my New York City Food lecture this morning and although
I had a very nice turnout, it would have been better if there weren’t
so many passengers in their staterooms feeling ill. The water is fairly
calm right now, at about 6 p.m. There’s a rainbow in the sky. But
the ship is still moving more than we would like it. I wonder how many
people will show up for dinner. It’s a black-tie evening featuring
chef Markus Gerber’s tasting menu.
I didn’t do any touring in Norfolk. I stayed on board and transcribed
recipes and notes from my nearly three months in Italy – all grist
for the Big Book of Southern Italian Food & Wine. But I haven’t
told you about my little Jewish experience in Baltimore yet.
I went to Attman’s, the delicatessen on Lombard St. that I had
been tipped off about a couple of weeks ago. Sure enough, as I was told,
they have great salami. They have their own label, but I tasted another
salami that was quite similar but I thought had the edge over the house
brand. Although the counterman said they are the same, Saval kosher beef
salami is slightly spicier, slightly fatter. I was a looking for a fatty,
spicy salami. My complaint is that kosher beef salami has become too lean
and bland. I bought a whole, five-pounder. The label says it is “distributed
by Saval Foodservice, Elkridge, MD.” Now I have to find out who
really makes it. Distributed means distributed not manufactured or produced.
And I want to know under what other labels it might be sold, and where
and if I can buy it in New York metro. Now I have to figure out what I
am going to do with five pounds of salami. A good, simple salami sandwich
on seeded rye with deli mustard will be a great treat. And, as mentioned
in my last letter, I can’t wait to make salami and eggs with salami
fat enough to render some lubrication to fry the eggs. Maybe I’ll
have a salami party!
I also tried Attman’s pastrami, corned beef, and chopped liver.
The menu says it sells “authentic New York delicatessen (only better).”
I hate to admit it, because I am such a New York chauvinist, but Attman’s
is right. Their meats are better than almost any deli you can get in New
York these days. In fact, I can’t think of better pastrami, except
at Katz’s and Junior’s. Attman’s is well-spiced, lightly
smoked, and incredibly succulent and tender without being too fatty. You’ve
gotta have some streaks of fat. I have to laugh when people complain that
pastrami is too fatty. It’s made from plate beef, also called navel,
which is equivalent to bacon. Fat is part of the attraction, a good part.
The corned beef, of course brisket, was equally succulent, not terribly
salty, great flavor, sliced paper thin. And since the Second Avenue Deli
closed, I haven’t had such good chopped liver – well, except
for my own homemade, if I say so myself.
I spoke to Earl Oppel. He looked like the boss so I asked him if he was
Mr. Attman. “As close as you’re going to get,” said
Earl. He’s now the “chief of operations,” and he has
been working at the deli since 1973, when, judging by the picture of him
on the wall behind the counter, he was in his 20s. Earl says the pastrami
and corned beef are made for them – to Attman’s specifications
– by a New York-based processor. He wouldn’t tell me who.
Understandable. The deli is unbelievably popular. I arrived before noon
and seated myself in the Kibbutz Room, the side room with tables. The
main deli is just a long counter displaying the food. Besides meats, there
are all the usual salads, and a few decidedly non-kosher items –
trayf – like crab cakes, a Maryland specialty. They have Coddies,
too, which one might suppose are cod cakes but it has been generation
sisnce they have had cod, salt cod, in them. I went to the University
of Maryland in the 1960s. Even then I remember Coddies as fried potato
cakes seasoned with Old Bay seasoning, the hot mixed spice used for crab
cakes.
When I arrived before lunch, the deli was empty. The only other people
were some transplanted Baltimorians, a retired couple visiting from Florida.
When I returned an hour later, at 12:30, to pick up my salami, there was
a line for sandwiches from the front door to the rear of the deli, then
back to the front door. Locals wait for more than a half hour, on their
lunch hour, to get a sandwich here. And you don’t have to be Jewish.
There were as many black faces as Yiddishe kops (that’s Jewish heads).
Attman’s has been in business since 1915 and it used to be just
one of several Jewish delis on Lombard St., which was called Corned Beef
Row. This was Baltimore’s Jewish and Italian immigrant neighborhood.
In fact, down the block and across the street from Attman’s are
the only other landmarks from that era. The neo-classic Lloyd Street Synagogue,
built in 1845, is the third oldest synagogue in the country. B’nai
Israel Synagogue was built in 1876 in grand Moorish Revival style. Along
with the synagogues is the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Lombard St. is just
a few blocks east of Baltimore’s “Inner Harbor,” the
rejuvenated port area that is home to too many chain restaurants and chain
stores, plus office buildings, the convention center, hotels, and other
tourist facilities. The old immigrant street has also been gentrified,
but I think in a much nicer way. The old former immigrant slum buildings
have been turned into very attractive homes. And where later-day high-rise
public housing stood, buildings that replaced the worst of the slums and
then became slums themselves, there are now new townhouse-style condominiums.
What I didn’t see where any stores to service this new community.
Where Lombard St. used to be a bustling commercial strip servicing the
teaming immigrant community, there are only residential buildings now.
Except for Attman’s!
Most unfortunately, I didn’t get in to see the synagogues. You
need a tour guide for that and the tour guide wasn’t going to show
up until too late for me to wait. I did, however, see the current exhibit
at the museum, “Voices of Lombard Street: A Century of Change in
East Baltimore.” It explains through photographs, printed oral history,
narration, and exhibits, what this old Jewish and Italian ghetto was like.
Very nice!
All best from the Seabourn Pride,
Arthur
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