Bialy memories: Kossar's Bialy store, New York City

The other day Ron Bloom unearthed photos I took in the 1980s on one of our trips from Baltimore to New York to visit relatives and return home with provisions unavailable in what has been known as "Charm City."  Baltimore had its appealing qualities but "charm" was not one I'd identify.

Kossar's Bialy store (link has instructions on how to eat one!) has somehow stayed in place on the lower east side though the bakers have changed ethnicity.  As I mentioned on an earlier post, this is THE place for authentic bialys and we would fill our car trunk to enrich our Baltimore freezer with about 10 dozen--some to be shared with fortunate friends and neighbors, always plenty to last us till the next longing.

I offer this as a window into how deeply some are attached to particular food connected with memory.  This is Ron's, honed over many years in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn,(scroll down on the page)  a Jewish ghetto of an American style.

My own special food is tapioca (this public service link has recipe how to make it with real, not instant, pearls) probably tasted in a Manhattan cafeteria like Horn & Hardart (gorgeous photo of odd machine that delivered cocoa for a nickel in my memory--rather than coffee mentioned in copy.)  A far less emotion-filled food recollection than his.

Comments

[Hattie]

Such fascinating stuff! San Francisco has had a very assimilated, aristocratic, and artistic and intellectual Jewish community since its very beginning.
In spite of my close contact with Jews and Jewish organizations all through my early life, Jewishness per se never clicked with me. I think I conflated Jewish with European at that point. Not an uncommon mistake, I'm sure, at that time and in that place.
It wasn't until I went east that I found out about "ethnic" accents, foods, etc.

[Lydia]

I just had a great tour at that bialy store link!

[Kay]

My guy was a bialy maven. I wonder if the ones at Barney Greengrass come from Kossar's? They are good if you like that sort of thing. (Ron! I'm kidding! I do like that sort of thing!)

The best thing about this post, though, is the time-machine photos of Ron!