6 | The Jewish Press | December 23, 2011 PRINTING, COPYING and DIGITAL NETWORK
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Dough Boy: Noah Wildman wants to make knishes popular again by JEFFREY YOSKOWITZ Rivington Street slashed prices and introduced cabaret (Tablet Magazine) -- When I was 13 and my father deemed sideshows to attract customers. me ready for the kind of education only to be found within Now a new generation of Jewish chefs and bakers around the bloated knishes of Brighton Beach, we drove from New the country are making their claim on such classic dishes. Jersey to Brooklyn for the day so Kenny and Zuke’s in Portland, he could introduce me to his Ore. offers a potato-and-onion beloved Mrs. Stahl’s, the crème de variety with layers of flaky la crème of the knish world, nearly dough, topped with caramelized a decade before it closed its doors onions. Wise Sons Jewish for good in the fall of 2005. Delicatessen in San Francisco has The arrival of a new knish its own occasional potato-onion maker in town might be cause to knish iteration, with the onions reconsider the lament that the cooked down in schmaltz; the golden days of the knish are over. deli also offers potato with mushThis fall a quixotic 40-year-old room and kale, and potato with Lower East Sider named Noah cubes of house-cured corned Wildman launched Knishery NYC beef. “People go crazy for them,” with the hopes of restoring the Leo Beckerman, one of Wise A collection of knishes from Noah Wildman. food’s glory. He has begun deliverSons’ proprietors, said. Credit: Knishery NYC ing knishes to customers in New And then there’s Wildman. York City by bicycle, and his pushcart start-up will soon be Raised in a Reform household on Staten Island, Wildman, vending at street fairs around the city this coming spring. who now lives just blocks away from Rivington Street on the The revisiting of so simple a food as the knish -- a doughy Lower East Side, grew up eating frozen knishes but never shell usually stuffed with potato, kasha, or cheese -- has been imagined that he would one day be baking them. a long time coming. Great knishes can be elusive, while adeA series of serendipitous encounters led him to the knish. quate and sometimes disappointing ones, like those avail- Wildman visited Williamsburg’s weekly food festival, and able at Yonah Schimmel in Manhattan and Knish Nosh in was inspired by the new approaches to classic ethnic fare Queens, generally prevail. that he found there. At the same time, Wildman stumbled Wildman has no plans to remake the knish, a staple of the into a well-timed lecture series on the knish taught by Laura working class, into haute cuisine. “Part of Jewish character is Silver, a writer in New York City. to see through the silliness,” he said. “To go for substance.” Reawakened by Silver’s enthusiasm, Wildman tried out And few Jewish foods are as packed with substance as the four different recipes to find a dough that balanced crisp knish. The baked dumpling came to the United States at the and elastic textures with chewy and crumbly consistencies. end of the 19th century by way of Eastern Europe, with “The dough is a vehicle for filling, but you need the vehicle competing accounts tracing the pastry’s origin to either the first,” he said. He uses two kinds of dough -- one for savory Polish town of Knyszyn or to a village in Slovakia. The knish knishes and one for sweet ones, “a kind of Bubbe’s pâte fillings offered a terrific way to add variety to a monotonous sucrée.” Keeping the right proportion of dough to filling is diet heavy on potatoes, cabbage, and buckwheat. There were one of the most critical elements of a perfect knish, also knish varieties tied to the Jewish holidays, according to Wildman said. His fillings range from high-quality versions Joan Nathan, such as kasha for Hannukah and chicken liver of the standards to savory pumpkin, apple-cheese, and for Rosh Hashanah. chocolate hazelnut. In addition, he plans future fillings of At the turn of the 20th century, Jewish immigrants in the curry sweet potato, the crispy chicken fat known as United States would bring knishes -- a portable and filling gribenes, and mushroom-quinoa. pocket food -- to lunch with them at their factory jobs. As The Knishery NYC is in its infancy, but Wildman is the food writer Arthur Schwartz notes in Jewish Home already producing knishes to reckon with, with a sensible Cooking, knishes, which were cheap, were also popular fare, dough-to-filling ratio, and in sizes more baseball than softoften paired with hotdogs, at the beaches around New York ball. Served with a Lime Rickey and deli mustard, Wildman’s City. Back then, Manhattan’s famous Second Avenue, home knishes could be a spiritual experience, or at least one that to the Yiddish theater, was known as Knish Alley. In 1910, brings back the memory of Mrs. Stahl. Yonah Schimmel opened a knish store on Houston Street on Jeffrey Yoskowitz is a freelance writer in New York and Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Six years later, the New York the editor of the website Pork Memoirs. This article origiTimes reported on a “knish war,” when rival bakeries on nally appeared on Tablet Magazine, tabletmag.com.
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