Katz's Delicatessen, the temple of pastrami in New York
i24NEWS ·
The 3 Minutes POP in front of "a legendary and historic New York landmark": Katz's Delicatessen, open since 1888 on the Lower East Side, "the city's old Jewish neighborhood," where all the immigration that spoke only Yiddish was concentrated. This is where the restaurant was born that popularized in the United States the sandwich known as the Reuben. The recipe: two slices of bread, "but above all, at its heart, a dozen hot and juicy slices of pastrami cooked to perfection." "It's not at all a diet, but it's so good!" From kneidlach to chopped liver, latkes and knishes, this family restaurant "has been through every crisis New York has known": in 1906, just around the corner, immigrant mothers stormed the neighborhood's schools to keep their children from school doctors who wanted to remove their tonsils; Katz's served hot meals to the poorest, and still today you can send American soldiers deployed around the world a salami "to share with the boys, as they say here." On September 11, 2001, when the whole south of the city was covered in debris and toxic black smoke, Katz's opened its doors to shelter passers-by. A must-stop in Manhattan, enough to "win over the most doubtful who think Ashkenazi Jewish cooking has nothing to envy the couscous and meatballs of North Africa." Important detail: the meat is "kosher style"; it is the way the cured meat is cooked, smoked and preserved that is highlighted, "a whole tradition preserved for 130 years." David Benaym's 3 Minutes POP in Benjamin Petrover's “C'été l'info”, i24NEWS in French, July 11, 2018.