Housemade Pastrami: brined, spiced, smoked

September 7, 2011 – 11:45 am

Pastrami

Pastrami on rye with mustard, a simple pleasure, no?

No, not really simple at all.

We used to get pastrami from New York. It arrived in a plastic bag, and we steamed it to order. It traveled three thousand miles. Next we procured local, hormone free and antibiotic free meat but sent it to Los Angeles for curing.  Then, most recently, we started having trouble with supplies of this special arrangement.

Finally, we decided to bring pastrami production under our roof.

Hand-slicing Saul's housemade pastrami

Now many permutations and decisions.

For the rub: Red or black? Definitely coriander, black pepper, paprika. What proportion each? Allspice, clove, garlic?

Peter slices pastrami on the Spice of Life chef stage

What kind of smoke and how much? Pastrami is a smoked meat after all. A whole generation is used to pastrami out of a plastic bag with only a distant hint of smoke.

Cut of meat? Navel or brisket. One is too fatty, the other too dry.  Strictly grass fed or corn finished?  Cow or steer meat?

About the brine: Pump and float or just float or just dry rub? Minimize nitrates and risk the perfect pink color?

We are aiming for a pastrami that is never too dry or fatty (although this is very subjective), peppery, spicy, smoky and essentially on the fatty side. Please remember that in every piece of pastrami, even assuming the most skilled slicing, there will be sublime to less sublime and then sublime again, in one piece. Hopefully you get a perfect combination of slices on a perfect pastrami day. If not let us know.

With so many variables it becomes a rather complicated and changeable process. We hope you will join us in this journey, still very new.  Your feedback is always welcome, especially written form and shared with kindness.

Pastrami spices

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Housemade pickles: brining, fermenting, crunching

September 4, 2011 – 12:30 pm

Pickles

‘The perfection of fermented foods lies in it’s imperfection. If your desire is for perfectly uniform, predictable food, this is the wrong food for you… If you are willing to collaborate with these tiny beings with somewhat capricious habits and vast transformative powers, then eat on.’

Sandor Katz

Pickle plates at Spice of Life Festival with chermoula peppers

We have committed to make our pickles in house. This means when they are good they are really good.

Before when we gave free pickles, we found more than a third would make their way to the garbage can.

So we reduced the price of a sandwich 50c and charge 50c for a pickle. Believe it or not we no longer find pickles in the garbage.

Also non-pickle eaters no longer subsidize pickle eaters. Its a win-win.

Another benefit: before people did not really have an option of half sour vs full sour. You got what came in those pasteurized buckets.

Now both our customers and staff are developing a real knowledge of the difference, the complexities and the joy of fermented foods.

We now ferment sours, half sours, kraut and pickled green tomatoes.

Pickling tomatoes

Every morning a Saul’s ferment nerd, can be found testing brines, skimming yeast by-products, making sure all cucumbers are submerged and starved of oxygen, and generally prodding the ferments along and keeping them safe from taking wrong turns.

Some days the sours are just not yet sour enough for one, yet too sour for another.

Some batches absorb too much salt, some not salty enough. Some cucumbers arrive from the fields too big, sometimes just right.

 

If you are eating pastrami or corned beef we strongly urge you to eat these with our fermented pickles.

It is good nutrition, good digestion and good old yiddishkeit.

These true and tried complimentary flavors, in balance, provide harmony.

Pickle plate with radishes

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Deli Summit: Exploring the Challenges and Thrills of the Modern Deli

June 1, 2011 – 11:31 am

Peter Levitt, Saul’s Restaurant and Deli, Berkeley
Noah Bernamoff, Mile End Deli, Brooklyn
Ken Gordon, Kenny & Zuke’s Deli, Portland
Evan Bloom, Wise Sons Deli SF pop-up

Moderator: Joan Nathan, Author of ten cookbooks including Jewish Cooking in America and Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Food Arts Magazine and Tablet Magazine.

Original billing:

At the:
JCC of the East Bay (just around the corner)
1414 Walnut Street
Berkeley, CA 94709

On the menu from Wise Sons:

House-baked Bialys and Smoked Fish, with chive cream cheese, red onion & capers. Sweet and sour pickles on the side 7 openfaced 10

The beloved institution of Jewish delis continues to disappear.

But a few brave delis are breaking up canons of the dying model. Delis in this NY Times article by Julia Moskin: Can the Jewish Deli Be Reformed?

Saul’s Restaurant and Deli in Berkeley is convening these upstarts for a Deli Summit. Four very different models of renegade.

Saul’s owners Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt believe they and their colleagues will benefit from collaboration on a common language. In a culinary genre defined by rigid expectations (yet varied depending on customer), comparison and critique, these delis trailblazing the deli lexicon can gradually give each other points of reference and authority.

This is a restaurant concept being actively revived. What do these departures from the Deli Institution look like on the menu, the plate, in the dining room? What does it mean to thrive as a deli business?

This is a follow-up to Saul’s Referendum on the Jewish Deli Menu. Now with the other Delis, Saul’s will talk nuts and bolts of their industry.

It’s a behind the scenes, chefs-in-the-trenches conversation open to the public.

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Preserved lemon in Jewish cooking

January 6, 2011 – 12:38 pm

Preserving lemons at Saul's

Joan Nathan says “preserved lemons are an indispensable item in my pantry cupboard.” From her book The Foods of Israel Today on preserved lemons in Jewish cooking:

“(The lemons) are delicious in salads, in chicken with olives, in a marvelous Moroccan brisket, and stuffed into the cavity of a simple roast chicken with garlic and fresh herbs,” Nathan writes. “Long ago the lemons were weighted with stones to keep them submerged in the preserving liquid. (But in the) contemporary method, the lemons sink with the weight of the salt.”

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Camp Kee Tov comes to visit

September 5, 2010 – 9:51 am

Kee Tovers enjoying a Turkish Field Breakfast

We love hosting Camp Kee Tov campers learning about where food comes from. It’s one of our favorite parts of summer each year.

Matzo ball soup

This year Kee Tov campers visited Terra Bella Family Farm, one of our purveyors, then came to Saul’s the next day and tasted summer tomatoes with zhoug. Their very own private farm-to-table tour.

Co-Owner Karen Adelman and Chef Tu Phu talk tomatoes. Camp leader Rachel Harris in green also works the land at Terra Bella Family Farm.

Mmm

What is zhoug?

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Referendum on The Deli Menu

March 13, 2010 – 9:14 am

Can a retro cuisine be part of the avant-garde?

A sold out audience of over 250 attended our February 9 discussion. Feedback and debate in the restaurant (and online!) has been tremendous.

We brought together Michael Pollan, Evan Kleiman, Willow Rosenthal and Gil Friend. We chose panelists with the credibility of loving Deli (they all eat meat, and they all eat at Saul’s) and who are also driving sustainability.

 

Here’s the original billing.

Panelists:

Michael Pollan, Journalist, Author: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food
Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, Author: The Truth About Green Business
Willow Rosenthal, Founder, City Slicker Farms
Karen Adelman, Co-Owner, Saul’s Restaurant and Deli
Peter Levitt, Co-Owner, Saul’s Restaurant and Deli
Moderator: Evan Kleiman, Host, KCRW’s Good Food, Owner-Chef, Angeli Caffe

Proceeds benefit The Center for Ecoliteracy

**Venue has been changed from Saul’s to the JCC of the East Bay just around the corner. To accommodate demand.**


Can the Jewish Deli be sustainable?


What does sustainability mean for the future of Deli cuisine and culture?


Many expectations of “real” Deli conflict with sustainability and today’s economic realities. Even “authentic” cuisine can obstruct progress toward more just, sustainable food. How does a business committed to being part of the solution persuade traditionalist customers of the importance of change?


For example, towering pastrami sandwiches once signified success, security and abundance, an immigrant’s celebration of the American Dream. But given the realities of meat production in America today – 99% is factory farmed – how can we continue to stand by this as an icon?

Even the factory farmed pastrami sandwich has become an unsustainable business model, because of its tiny profit margins.


How can we look at our nostalgia and expectations critically?


How might we evolve a shared cuisine together? How can Saul’s bring more people into the conversation?

There’s much more conversation to be had beyond the conversation we had on Feb 9 . . . come in and chat with us.

Check out our blog post on the (sometimes controversial) changes Saul’s has made over the years.

And please do stay tuned for future discussions at Saul’s. We’re thinking about the intersection of food, culture, identity, change, evolution, memory, the challenges of local, sustainable sourcing for a 100+ seat restaurant with a large, set menu . . .

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“What kind of a Jewish Deli is this?”

February 1, 2010 – 5:04 pm

Can the Jewish Deli change?

Or must it always stay the same to be good and authentic?

Anthony Bourdain opposes change in the Deli:

It’s a classic refrain of Deli Mavens.

Here are some changes to Deli that Saul’s has made over the years. They’ve been a bit controversial . . .

Smaller sandwiches – not twelve or eight ounces, but six. Those mountainous pastrami sandwiches were made possible in the postwar deli heyday by cheaply, industrially produced meat. A typical Italian Deli sandwich has 2-4 ounces on it. But a “real” NY deli does towering sandwiches.

No more Dr. Brown’s sodas. Cream and Celery is scratch-made in house, and Black Cherry is made only when black cherries are in season. One of the saddest changes in Jewish deli history has been consolidation of the soda industry, from hundreds of small-batch, regional and local soda alchemists in the New York area alone, to just a few brands recalling that era and those flavors, in name only. For example, Dr. Brown’s is made from high-fructose corn syrup and artificial ingredients, and owned by Dr. Pepper/Snapple Group. Plus, shipping it to Saul’s logs lots of food miles. We won Best of the East Bay in the East Bay Express for our seasonal housemade sodas.

Seasonality, a changing menu. Vegetables, legumes, grains, seafood back on the plate. And often at the center of the plate. Sephardic-inspired dishes. Deli heresy!

Smaller, regional menu – Chilled borscht only in summer and when beets are in season – “What kind of a Deli are you that doesn’t have borscht!?” Gefilte fish is housemade, fresh. We have it for the holidays, not year round.

Grassfed flavor and texture: Our brisket, corned beef and cabbage rolls are made with local, grass-fed beef. Americans hadn’t tasted corn-fed beef until after WWII. But today’s palates are accustomed to corn-fed flavor, texture and fat content, so for some customers, grass-fed doesn’t seem quite right. More here on the challenge of sourcing local, grass-fed pastrami to replace the not-as-sustainable Niman Ranch.

Handmade Acme rye from rye flour and sourdough starter, not the white flour “rye” that has evolved as “real Jewish rye” because it works better in bread machines than sticky rye flour. More here.

Wanted: Local, clean salami – Salami has been taken off the menu until we know where it’s coming from. We have many loyal customers who love salami, even industrially produced salami, and are very upset that we don’t serve it.

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Is the HUGE pastrami sandwich killing the deli?

February 1, 2010 – 9:53 am

A "Real" pastrami sandwich

Many beloved delis have disappeared over the last few decades.

Believe it or not, the huge pastrami sandwich is a big reason why. It is no longer a profitable business model.

Here’s an excerpt from Save the Deli by David Sax on the subject:

Investigative Deli Reporter David Sax's blog

Pastrami is most commonly made from a cut of beef known as the navel . . . until recently, these cuts of meat were inexpensive . . . This meant that the deli meats were cheap to buy and sell. But several factors have increased demand and prices for traditionally Jewish cuts of meat: the rising popularity of Texas–style BBQ brisket . . . Tongue prices, driven by exports to Asia, have shot up ten times since 1980. Domestically, new pressure is coming from the energy sector, where the rising cost of oil has created a boom market in corn ethanol, increasing the price of cattle feed

And customers expect deli and sandwiches to be cheap. Diners are happy to pay $20 for a steak dinner. Put the same amount or more beef between two slices of rye bread – with all the time and energy of curing – and customers expect to pay less for it.

. . . [E]ven with pastrami sandwiches at fifteen dollars and up, most New York delis are breaking even or losing money on their namesake item . . . Customers also have a perceived expectation that Jewish Delis have always been, and will always be, cheap places to eat. Were delicatessen customers asked to pay the real cost of their sandwich, they’d surely revolt.

Saul's Pastrami Ruben

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Wanted: Salami

December 31, 2009 – 2:48 pm

We’ve stopped serving salami until we know where the beef comes from.

99% of meat in this country is produced by factory farms.

Help us find salami that is:

Humanely raised – Let’s not support confined animal feeding operations.

Sustainably raised – Protect our air, water and soil from pollution. Reduce petroleum use in agriculture.

Hormone and antibiotic free – Protect our public health.

Locally made is preferred, to support local production, food skills, craft, and local commerce.

Saul’s customers love salami. We have the demand. Help us procure the supply.

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Is this real Jewish rye?

October 12, 2009 – 10:29 am

What is authentic Jewish deli rye? White flour flecked with a few caraway seeds, or colored a darker brown, with rye flour?  A bit sour, made slowly from starter? Artisanal? Cheap in a hedonistic, guilt-free gluttony and unhealthy-just-today-late-night-at-the-diner kind of way?

Acme organic rye

Acme organic rye

Like it or not, we delis aren’t just expected to serve good (Jewish) comfort food. We are in the business of reproducing memory. And authentic doesn’t necessarily = good. Or locally sourced, quality ingredients.

How was it, we ask our customers. Just how it’s supposed to be.

Many customers come to Saul’s searching for Authenticity. That all-important barometer for deli enthusiasts is based on some other meal in another time in a far off place. Usually New York. Usually many years in the past.

And usually at a deli that enjoyed its heyday in the 1950′s and hasn’t really changed since. Or doesn’t exist anymore. Because that business model doesn’t work today. It’s a socioeconomic approach to food that isn’t sustainable.

Famous towering pastrami sandwiches hit their peak at the same time in history as the highly mechanized “efficient” industrial food system was most celebrated. That’s the main point of reference for the deli.

Given all that, dominant notions of authentic, good deli expressly does not include local sourcing, local production, relationships with small family farmers. Or ingredients that require hands and time instead of machines. In fact, the tastes and textures of industrial deli runs completely counter to these things.

Take rye bread.

Turn of the century rye bread was made with rye flour. It gives rye bread a brown color. Our bread is an 18 hour process at Acme Bakery down the street. It organic, and the bakers know the farmers who produce and mill their flour. Since it is handmade, sometimes it has air holes in it.

Most rye in New York today isn’t made with rye flour. It’s made with white flour. Production, industrial baking took out rye flour because it sticks in the machine. Industrial bread never has holes, it looks all the same.

Hundreds of delis have disappeared using cheap, industrial ingredients, trying to reproduce that 1950′s experience.

We believe deli food is only authentic it is good, and it’s only as good as it’s sourcing. That values local, organic, sustainable. Small business and farmers.

It’s our bittersweet philosophy. Memory is not Saul’s only master. That fixed, narrow point in Jewish culinary history does not define our deli.

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