I'll Have What She's Having: The Jewish Deli by Cate Thurston, Laura Mart, and Lara Rabinovitch

Abstract

Reviewed by: I'll Have What She's Having: The Jewish Deliby Cate Thurston, Laura Mart, and Lara Rabinovitch Sarah Bunin Benor (bio) I'll Have What She's Having: The Jewish Deli. Curated by Cate Thurston, Laura Mart, and Lara Rabinovitch. Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California ( 04 14– 09 4, 2022). https://www.skirball.org/exhibitions/ill-have-what-shes-having-jewish-deli. Additional venues: New York Historical Society ( 11 11, 2022 – 04 2, 2023), Holocaust Museum, Houston, Texas ( 05 4– 08 13, 2023), and Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, Skokie, IL ( 10 22, 2023– 04 14, 2024). "I'll have what she's having." This line evokes a memorable scene in When Harry Met Sally. It is also the title of a delightful, informative exhibit originating at the Skirball Cultural Center that explores the setting of that scene: the Jewish deli. The title seems to refer not only to the status of the deli within popular culture but also to the influence of Ashkenazi Jews on American society. At delis in urban areas around the United States, non-Jewish customers have demonstrated this influence, deciding, "I'll have what the Jews are having." One of the early panels introduces the exhibit's central narrative: "The Jewish deli is a community forged in food—a venue where families and friends gather, politicians campaign, and filmmakers, comedians, and musicians find inspiration. Although originally created by European Jewish immigrants to serve Jewish customers, delis have become a gathering place for Americans of many different backgrounds." The exhibit highlights this multicultural gathering through an impressive array of media: images of Nelson Rockefeller, Ted Cruz, and Tammy Duckworth campaigning in delis; publicity photos of Elvis Presley and Guns N' Roses in delis; and clips of deli scenes from film and television. Beyond the venue, the food itself has influenced American society. Visitors see mouthwatering images—and Japanese-style plastic models—of foods that Ashkenazi Jews introduced to America, from knishes to kugel, from matzah ball soup to pastrami on rye. A less obvious domain of cultural influence is language. Next to the food models is a glossary of Yiddishisms that have become part of American English—not only deli-relevant words like noshand fressbut also more general words like meshuggahand shayna punim. This placard highlights how deeply intertwined food, language, and culture are in the contributions of Jews to American society. I'll Have What She's Havingalso highlights the confluence of multiple culinary vectors. "Jewish delicatessen is a fusion food born of immigration. It combines regional food traditions from Central and Eastern Europe with available ingredients in the United States, resulting in an entirely new American Jewish phenomenon." An example is bagels, lox, and cream cheese. Originally part of the appetizing tradition, today [End Page 331]this sandwich is a staple of deli fare and, more broadly, Jewish (and American) brunch. The exhibit hints at the streams of immigration and historical developments that resulted in this delectable dish but does not have the space to discuss the socioeconomic factors and implications that Jeffrey Marx analyzes in his 2017 scholarly essay, "Eating Up: The Origins of Bagels and Lox," published in Tastes of Faith: Jewish Eating in the United States. Instead, we are treated to a riveting 1979 video detailing the kneading, rolling, boiling, seeding, and baking of bagels in a Brooklyn bakery, immersing visitors in a particular historical moment of the bagel's development. This exhibit incorporates and builds on scholarship such as books by Hasia Diner ( Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, 2001) and Ted Merwin ( Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli, 2017). I'll Have What She's Havingtraces the history of the deli as it relates to waves of immigration, urban enclaves and suburbanization, technological advances in meat production, labor unions, World War II, the Civil Rights movement, and the current artisanal culinary aesthetic. It also presents an innovative section on delis owned and frequented by Holocaust survivors. Using examples from Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, the exhibit argues that these delis "provided a livelihood and purpose" for survivors...