Russ and Daughters...

Was walking by the little refrigerated kosher section in our supermarket the other day and noticed that the bulk of the items there were jars of various kinds of herring, horseradish, pickles, gefilte fish  and some hot dogs and cold cuts.  That might cause someone to wonder:  Is that what Jews eat?  Walking through Russ and Daughter's the other day, I sort of wondered the same thing.  All that lox and smoked fish, 8 kinds of cream cheese and six kinds of herring, schmaltz, chopped, matjes, in cream sauce, et al, and bagels and chopped liver.   Is that what Jews eat, and how did a small band of desert dwellers dispersed around the world end up becoming the people of the book, and the eaters of bagel and lox or a schmaltz herring maybe?  Well, we have certainly developed a most unique and exotic culinary palate, when you look at the extraordinary array of culinary delights attributed to us,  although these days, they are primarily seen and savored only on the holidays or on Sunday mornings.   Sunday mornings at Russ and Daughters looks nothing like this...

If the place looks quiet now,  that's because it is.  But on Sunday morning, in fact anytime on the weekend, its a madhouse, imagine hoards of fressers jamming into this very little store, elbowing each other to jockey for position,  milling around the counters, muttering under their breath or growling not so quietly, and crowding the sidewalk all the way down Houston Street to Orchard waiting for their number to be called.  And waiting and waiting and waiting.  They say when you are hungry time seems to slow down, but it is not just an illusion here, and the intoxicating perfume of all that smoked fish adds to the agony.  And since they have had to wait so long, each customer seems to take their sweet time in deciding and examining to see if the lox is sliced thin enough, the salmon is moist enough, the white fish is plump, always seeming to finish their order and then just needing one or two more things.  God bless the people who work behind the counter.  You could always go on Saturday to avoid the mob, but the bagels and bialys won't be fresh and if you are shomer shabbos...

But of course it is worth it, otherwise they wouldn't be there.  Finally my number is called. While I was waiting I heard two different discriminating older men order the Irish Lox... Irish!!!  They seemed to know what they were doing,  so I decided to give it a try.  Last time I tried to get fancy and went for the Scottish Lox I got burnt.  It had a distinctly fishy taste I didn't like, so I went back to the Nova and a good single malt.  Was it time to take a risk?   These guys looked like they knew something so I got 6 ounces of the Irish.  They were right!!!  It had a smooth, smokey, complex but mildly flavorful taste, absolutely perfect, kind of like the 12 year old single malt scotch of loxes.  Got some bagels and bialys, veggie cream cheese, kippered salmon and was on my way. 

My first memory of Russ and Daughters was 1968.  It was a rainy afternoon and me and Michael and Wizzy had just come from the Fillmore East after scoring some Moby Grape tickets and were hungry and a little broke.  We were wet and cold heading back to Michael's apt and stopped by R&D to get a chunk of pumpernickel from the huge loaves with the union labels on them that used to sit on the counter,  a container of veggie cream cheese, some herring, and headed home.  We were long haired and light hearted and would stop in for this or that now and then, enough so that be became kind of friendly with one of the daughters (looking at the photos, I think it was Anne), who used to tell us we were "such nice boys".   It was a different time then.  Russ and Daughters is frozen in time in my mind, too bad we couldn't have been too. 

If you want to know more about everything about Russ and Daughters, buy the book of the same name by Mark Russ Federman who is a grandson of Russ, who now seems to run the place.  This has just been an account from the other side of the counter.

                                                                         Pablo