The Staff of Life, or What Do You Want On Your Tombstone?

I'll be the first to say we live in tough times and being adaptable is key. So I can't say I blame a certain neighborhood shopkeeper for wanting to diversify. This particular purveyor, the owner of Grande Monuments, is an oooooooold-timer in my quasi-Italian, hipster-fied area of Brooklyn and his main business is the selling of tombstones, or "monuments" as the sign advertises. But now it seems he's expanded his wares to include ... wait for it ... bread. Apparently the death and dying business is slow? Or perhaps this shopkeep noticed his patrons getting peckish whilst perusing the adornments of their final resting places? Whatever the case, this strange juxtaposition of life-affirming bread and death-affirming gravestone seems at once totally ridiculous and strangely appropriate.

I've been eying said establishment for a couple weeks, torn about whether or not to risk further investigation. Much as I love bread and have no doubt that the sort sold in this funny little storefront would be delish (it hails from a reputable Italian bakery in Bensonhurst and is not, for better or worse, made onsite), the prospect of procuring such a comestible when its been rubbing spatial elbows with potential corpse placards makes me uneasy and a little nauseous. But on the recommendation of my local barista, who highly recommended the 'prosciutto' bread (quotation marks are reproduced per the sandwich board outside the shop), I peeked inside, and found that I was disturbing the shopowner's lunch. He was a short, squat, rheumy-eyed Italian fella who, when I openly marveled at the diversity of the wares on offer, merely replied, "We're trying everything." Fair enough.

The bread was displayed on an ornate silver stand in the shop window, and though the loaves seemed perfectly fine, I couldn't reconcile future eating enjoyment with the musty, fusty environs, Astroturf floor and tombstone-littered showroom. I asked about the olive bread, which is a weekend specialty, and promised to return, narrowly avoiding purchasing a guilt loaf. Before leaving, I noticed that the shop was also selling a pair of black suede Jessica Simpson-brand pumps. My gaze didn't escape our friendly shopkeep, who assured me they were of the best quality, being that they were endorsed by Britney Spears. You can't blame him for trying.

The Hot Dog of the Sea

As a human being, I make sense of my world by comparing like with like. As a writer, this is especially helpful when critiquing, say, music or literature or food -- it's both comforting to me and, ideally, evocative to the lucky twelve or so people who actually read what I've written.

When I go out to dinner at a fancy sea food restaurant (oftener than you'd think given my monetary restrictions of late) I enjoy regaling my eating companions with my observation that the lauded lobster is essentially the cockroach of the sea. It helps if my foodmates are sensitive of stomach or adherent to the proscribed rules of dining etiquette. Cuz I'm a brat like that.

I was talking to my mom today and she mentioned that she was going to be making gefilte fish for the upcoming Passover seder, and immediately I started to think about this inexplicably comforting Jewish delicacy, which I've explained to non-Jews as the HOT DOG of the sea. For the uninitiated, gefilte fish is workaday fish quenelle made from a savory hodgepodge of mild fish including, but not limited to, pike, whitefish and, if you want to get real shtetl about it, carp. (I recall a kids' book I enjoyed as a whippersnapper that was called The Carp In The Bathtub, about a Jewish family who brought a carp home from the market to make into gefilte fish and stored in the family bathtub -- so sanitary, those Orthos -- and formed an unfortunate attachment to the fish that made slaughtering it all the more delicate.)

But I digress. For my gentile friends, let me try to impart the particular charms of the modest gefilte. It is a salty, fishy, starchy bolus of grossness, traditionally served on Shabbat and other holidays. In our modern times, only the most industrious home cooks attempt to make it from scratch, not simply because of its labor-intensive components, but because it makes your kitchen, and indeed the rest of your house, stink of fish for days on end. Most folks are content to purchase ready-made gefiltes in jars proffered by Manichewitz, suspended in jellied broth (it just gets better doesn't it?). To further the culinary simile, I'd point out that much like the hot dog, the gefilte is traditionally served with horseradish, a pungent, spicy condiment that functions much like mustard to cut the overwhelmingly fishy flavour, all but numbing the tastebuds in the face of a particularly malodorous chunk of fish.

In perusing Wiki, I found an abbreviated history of the gefilte (Yiddish for "filled or stuffed"), which you might find interesting. Being that ethnic cuisine, particularly the stuff of the lower-class, seems to appeal inherently to foodies intent on reinventing it to suit their evolved palates (see ramen, dumplings, tacos and the aforementioned frankfurter), I hereby predict we'll soon see a haute take on the lowly gefilte. A low-brow morsel in need of a high-brow makeover with a perfectly blue collar back story and potential for a million re-interpretations, it's ripe for a shot of epicurean repackaging. Mark my words. The hot dog of the sea is coming to an overpriced menu near you.