BOOK LOOK

Conti/wee/ from page 39

Besides exploring the origins of the 21 Club and
chicken and waffles (some say Los Angeles;
Schwartz says Harlem), he dishes about such sub-
jects as the "Jewish champagne," Dr. Brown's Cel-
Ray soda; Arnold Reuben, the first restaurateur to
name sandwiches after famous people; and early-
20th century bagels, called "cement doughnuts"
because they turned dense an hour after leaving the
oven.
Also included are recipes for the perfect matzah
ball and babka, the coffee cake that means "grand-
ma" in Polish. It's so named "because in its original
form it was stout and round, just like grandmothers
used to be before they went to aerobics classes and
practiced yoga," writes Schwartz.

EARLY CONVENIENCE
FOODS
Speaking from his apartment in Brooklyn, where he
was born and bred, the 58-year-old Schwartz banters
about how to properly eat deli sandwiches (God for-
bid you should put anything but mustard on pastra-
mi) and just how much Jewish immigrants influ-
enced Big Apple cuisine.
"Some of the most quintessential New York foods

40 • \ I 112

•

J N PLATIN U M

until the 1930s, Schwartz discovered while inter-
are of Central and Eastern European Jewish origin:
viewing Jewish food writer Joan Nathan. Rather,
bagels and lox, pastrami on rye, corned beef, pickles,
Jews ate the fish on black bread until Al Jolson sang
cheesecake, matzah balls, knishes," he says.
his song "Bagels and Yox" on a radio show sponsored
These foods had their start in Nlanhattan with the
by Kraft, the cream cheese manufacturer, around
creation of the now-ubiquitous delicatessen.
1933.
Although Schwartz can't name the first such restau-
Other Schwartz research
rant, he traces the institution,
revealed
secrets of the one-
in part, to individuals such as
"ARNOLD REUBEN
time
standard
egg cream, still
Isaac Gellis, the Berlin-born
to
be
found
in
many a
sausage manufacturer who,
Manhattan
diner.
The mix of
PROBABLY
DID
by 1872, was producing
seltzer,
chocolate
syrup
and
"mountains of kosher
milk
(no
eggs)
was
suppos-
sausages, frankfurters and
NOT CREATE THE
edly invented by Louis
other cold cuts."
Auster in a Lower East Side
"One reason these meats
candy store circa 1910.
REUBEN
SANDWICH,
became so popular — along
Initially Auster's grandson,
with lox, which is salted
Stanley,
kvetched he could-
salmon — is that they
BUT HE TOOK
n't
discuss
egg creams
require no further cooking,"
because
of
his heart condi-
Schwartz says. "If you lived
THE
CREDIT•"
tion;
after
prodding
from his
in a tiny tenement apartment
wife,
he
revealed
one
of
with minimal cooking facili-
grandpa's
secrets
was
the
ties, these were like conven-
particularly vigorous bubble in a homemade carbon
ience foods of their day."
dioxide-charged
seltzer. Schwartz recommends using
Lox, however, probably did not meet the bagel