Len Berk and appetizing stores

 

Whitefish salad

           When I was growing up in Chicago, there was a Jewish deli (is there any other kind?) next to the neighborhood theater, and we walked by the display window a lot. I was always a bit horrified by the dead fish in pans and the shriveled-looking sausages hanging above them. Venture in there to explore? Never!

But then I grew up, married a Jewish man from the Bronx, and found myself eating in the deli a lot—and loving it. When we traveled, the first thing we looked for in a new city was the deli. The marriage didn’t last, but for years I have said I got two really great things out of it: four wonderful children and a love of Jewish food.

So yesterday, I found myself a new hero. His name is Len Berk, and he is the last of the Jewish fish slicers. Twenty-some years ago, at the age of sixty-five, Berk, a retired CPA, went to work slicing fish at Zabar’s, a world-renowned appetizing store in Manhattan. These days, because of Covid-19, he stays home, but he misses his job and friends at Zabar’s. Yesterday he was interviewed on a program sponsored by The Forward (formerly The Jewish Daily Forward), a news media organization for a Jewish-American audience. Interviewed with him was New York Times food columnist Melissa Clark.

They talked about almost everything in Jewish food—belly lox, Nova lox, chubs (baby carp), hot smoked salmon (I was grown before, on a trip to the Pacific Northwest, I finally understood there is a vast difference between hot- and cold-smoked salmon). I had to look up milchig (milky) and I’d never heard of chicken carp (according to Berk, it’s what Jews ate before black cod became common and popular). The mention of whitefish salad sent me searching for a recipe—the one I found was developed by Bobby Flay, which I found sort of surprising. The mention of a bialy set my mouth watering for that taste that is like no other (like a bagel only it is not boiled before baking and instead of the bagel’s hole has a depression that is filled with chopped onion and maybe garlic and bread crumbs—heavenly!). They talked about sharpening knives and making gravlax (cold salmon cured with salt, sugar, and dill), which I’ve always wanted to try. I’m a bit scared of spending a lot for the salmon and not having it come out right—but Clark made it sound so simple.

But there’s a lot more to Len Berk than slicing fish. He writes a column for The Forward and has written about his first job as a teenage soda jerk in the Bronx, his lifelong affair with Chinese cuisine, including food trips to China, the customers he has served, including Seinfeld and Itzak Perlman and the 105-year-old man with whom he developed a slicing ritual that had to be followed every Friday when the gentleman shopped. One column advised novices on the difference between cod and sable, kippered and baked salmon. Berk, a gourmet all his life, is a veritable encyclopedia when it comes to Jewish food.

It’s no accident that he worked at Zabar’s appetizing store. Some say that designation means a store that sells fish and meat; others say it is a store that sells food you eat with bagels; still another suggestion is that it sells meat and dairy, whereas a kosher deli will not mix the two. Other well-known appetizing stores are Russ & Daughters, Sable’s, Sadelle’s, and Frankel’s.

Len Berk and appetizing stores are a whole world away from Texas and brisket and beans, but I was delighted to spend an hour in that world.

Now about the gravlax—or as Berk would have you say, the graved-lox….

Want to see Len Berk in action? Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BtKjZNjZrk&feature=youtu.be