Nostalgia Served Fresh: Exploring Religion Through Deli Cuisine

In recent years, there has been a nostalgic revival of interest in the Jewish deli menu. As Professor Rachel B. Gross explores in her book, Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice, chefs and restaurateurs have deliberately made American Jewish food fit for the twenty-first century, emphasizing sustainability, local produce, and a longing for Eastern European family and communal histories.  

By selling and consuming a revitalized deli cuisine, American Jews express their longing for authentic Jewish pasts, build community in the present, and pass on their values to future generations.  

Participating in the deli revival provides an alternative, under-appreciated way of practicing American Jewish religion. This analysis of an Ashkenazi culinary revival also provides tools for identifying the challenges in embracing the diversity within American Judaism. 

Rachel B. Gross is Associate Professor and John and Marcia Goldman Chair in American Jewish Studies in the Department of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University. She is a religious studies scholar who studies twentieth- and twenty-first-century American Jews. Her book, Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice, was a 2021 National Jewish Book Award finalist in American Jewish Studies and received an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society. She is currently researching the spiritual adventures of twentieth-century American Jewish writer Mary Antin.