I was at Saul’s Deli in Berkeley and I ordered the brisket plate with a latke. The meat was tender and juicy. It went great with the pickle and the sour cream and applesauce-slathered spud cake.
I felt a wave of comfort when I cut into that mound of meat. I felt vitality — glad to be alive — as I put that slice of beef into my mouth, where it melted into a glob of memories.
I don’t mean to sound Catholic here, where wafers purportedly undergo unusual transformations, but that brisket took me on a journey filled with life and death.
My wife’s Grandma Izzy recently passed away in Pittsburgh. The whole clan gathered in that steel town to mourn her passing and celebrate her life. There were hugs, reminiscences, old photos passed around. But what was the centerpiece in the big suburban home? Platters heaped with salads, crackers, cookies, bagels, lox, cheese. And meat. Cold cuts of course, and a hot plate teeming with luscious brisket.
I learned something in Pittsburgh. In the winter back East, cold pastrami isn’t going to give you enough comfort to fill the absence of a loved one. You need something warm, something rich. You need brisket.
I ate a lot of it and so did everyone else. This didn’t just happen in Pittsburgh. When my dad’s folks died within a year of each other in Southern California, friends and family consoled each other over platters of meat.
It’s funny how my most vivid impressions of Grandma Ida and Grandpa Charlie are tied to eating animals. Plying us with their huge trays filled with brisket, mashed potatoes and overcooked vegetables, they urged us to keep eating, never believing that we were full. Some of my visceral memories aren’t necessarily pleasant, like when I was 10 and came to the dinner table to find gigantic cow tongues on each plate. But after Grandpa Charlie gave me a guilt trip about rejecting his culinary efforts, I was forced to cut into it and take a bite. It felt like I was eating my own tongue.
Experiences like this contributed to my being a vegetarian for a couple years. When I would go to my grandparents’ house for family gatherings, the smell of roasted chicken always tempted me down the carnivorous path. One of the hardest things to resist was, I have to confess, not kosher — kielbasa and eggs.
I’ve heard some pretty strong arguments connecting vegetarianism and Jewish tradition. But after I resumed eating meat in my early 20s, I started to see the spiritual and emotional power of it. For my old country ancestors, the very fact they could afford a side of beef was an acknowledgement that they were getting by just fine. Meat was what you ate when things were going well — and it was the first to go when times were tough. It was a sign of well-being.
This was just as true for my grandparents who met at socialist demonstrations and survived the Depression together. When you put beef stew on the table for your family and friends who couldn’t afford their own, you were reminded of the joys of being alive.
My wife, until recently, only ate fish and was grossed out by meat. She started eating beef at the urging of her acupuncturist, and we have slowly and steadily started adding more and more meat to our diet. It really hit me when I walked into the kitchen last week to discover a whole chicken slowly cooking in our soup pot with herbs and rice. I immediately thought of my grandparents — the cooking smells, the crisp chicken skin, the giant sliced carrots floating in their bowls of soup. I gave my wife a big kiss.
Back at Saul’s, while I polished off the brisket and we washed down the meal with some chocolate babka, I thought to myself, I know why the ancient Hebrews sacrificed animals to God. Because they knew they had it pretty good — and maybe to thank their ancestors for all the good smells in the kitchen.
Jay Schwartz would like to sample all the brisket in the Bay Area. He can be reached at [email protected].