Overrated Tradition? Why Fresh Perspective Will Save the Jewish Deli

Presented by Aaron Steingold, proprietor
Steingold’s Deli, Chicago

Who doesn’t love Deli food? From the cornucopia of Jewish food delights that include corned beef on rye, chopped liver, chicken matzo ball soup, and lox and cream cheese on a bagel, Chicagoans have been relishing Deli food for generations. While there were hundreds of delis in the first part of the 20th century, today, not so many. (Ashkenaz, you are missed.) Yet the Deli still survives, with traditional food being served at stalwarts like Manny’s and the Bagel on Broadway, and “newish Jewish food” generously doled out at the likes of Steingold’s on West Irving Park.

Please join us as proprietor Aaron Steingold takes us on a nostalgic memory nosh of Chicago’s deli history and talks about the Renaissance of the Jewish Deli in our city. (Corned beef on rye with a twist, you could say.) Samples? What, you think we’d leave you hungry? Oy!

BIO: Raised in Charlottesville, Virginia to Brooklyn-bred parents, Aaron Steingold grew up in a kosher household, and visited New York’s delis often. A self-described “restaurant lifer,”Steingold came to Chicago 12 years ago and worked at Charlie Trotter’s, Art Smith’s Table 52 and several other key eateries here before opening his namesake Steingold’s with his wife, Elizabeth Abowd, in 2017. The deli is located at 1840 W. Irving Park.

Saturday, May 4, 2019
10 a.m. to noon
At Louis Weiss Memorial Hospital (Auditorium, lower level)
4646 N. Marine Drive (at Wilson), Chicago

FREE PARKING: USE OPEN LOT ON SOUTH SIDE OF HOSPITAL
(Signs will say “Permit Parking” and “Doctor’s Lot” but it’s OKAY for YOU to use on this Saturday!)
FREE STREET PARKING ALSO
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: CTA BUS #146 stops directly in front

Cost of the lecture program is $5, $3 for students and no charge for CHC members or Weiss faculty and staff. To reserve, please e-mail your reservation: Culinary.Historians@gmail.com