36 | JANUARY 5 • 2023 

NOSH
EATS | DRINKS | SWEETS

S

ukiyaki, Viennese Beef Goulash 
and Lamb Curry, just like your 
kosher mama or bubbie maybe 
used to make for dinner.
Nostalgia was one motivating fac-
tor when Richard J. Kaplan, a former 
Detroiter, decided to compile a fleis-
chig (meat) cookbook from his father 
Seymour Kaplan’s family recipes. “It was 
just as a fun thing to do,” said Richard 
Kaplan, 67, a retired tax and estate-plan-
ning attorney living in Estero, Florida, 
and Manchester Village, Vermont. 
Kaplan pays tribute to his dad in 
The Kaplan Bros. Kosher Meat Market 
Cookbook by Seymour Kaplan. Seymour 
and his younger brother, Saul Kaplan, 
were co-owners of a kosher butcher shop 
in Detroit that “was very well known in 
its day,” Richard said.
The first butcher in their family was 
Rabbi Joseph “Joe” Kaplan, born in 
1892 in Bielsk, Poland. After Joe passed 
away in 1945, his wife Rose (Levenburg) 
Kaplan, originally from Grodno in 
Poland, maintained their butcher shop 
around 12th Street (Richard wasn’t sure) 
for a couple more years.
In deciding to become butchers, 
American-born Seymour and Saul 
were in a sense restarting their father’s 
business. Richard said the brothers first 
rented space next to the Dexter-Davison 
Market at 18211 Wyoming, near Curtis, 
before purchasing their own building 
in 1961, next door at 18229 Wyoming. 
The business hours were long, as much 
as 70-75 hours a week, but Seymour 
told his son that he “loved the people he 

came into con-
tact with.”
In the cook-
book, Richard 
described his 
dad and uncle as 
being “the clos-
est of brothers, 
not only working 
together most 
every day, but spend-
ing much of their free time together as 
well. No one can recall them ever having 
an argument.”

Richard’s main job at the butcher 
shop was packing the hamburger meat 
some Sundays. As the business expand-
ed, Richard’s older brothers and future 
doctors, David and Robert Kaplan, used 
a company car to make local deliveries. 
Boys from the neighborhood took over 
later. 
“And if people heard we were already 
going somewhere (such as to visit rel-
atives in Grand Rapids),” Richard said, 
“Dad would deliver meat to them packed 
in dry ice in his car trunk.”
Their family belonged to Ahavas 
Achim Synagogue on Schaefer near 
Seven Mile in Detroit, and then 
Congregation 
Shaarey Zedek 
on Bell Road 
after moving to 
Southfield. Richard 
is a 1973 graduate 
of Southfield High 
School.
The end of 
“Kaplan Bros. 
Strictly Kosher 
Meats-Poultry,” 
as its ads called 
the business, 
came about 
after Seymour 
developed a 
bad heart condi-
tion. When he was unable 
to lift anything heavy 
at work, Richard said 
Seymour and Saul “closed 
up the shop without 

Kosher butcher’s son compiles cookbook of Kaplan Bros. 
recipes from archived Jewish News ads.
Long-Lost Culinary Delights

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The cover photo 
from the Kaplan 
Bros. cookbook 
shows Seymour 
Kaplan, left, and 
Saul Kaplan, 
right.

This recipe for 
borscht was 
printed in the 
JN in 1959.

