On Sunday, crowds of thousands rode ferries to Governors Island to attend a kind of New York-centric Coachella for Jewish food and culture.
With glistening waters and the Statue of Liberty in sight, the droves then descended upon a lush lawn for the festival, the Great Nosh. Revelers in flip-flops held inflatable green pickles while they danced on the grass. People wearing Hebrew-lettered jewelry and Star of David necklaces waited in line for portable toilets. Couples strolled together with cups of Van Leeuwen ice cream paired with black-and-white cookies from Zabar’s.
The festival’s stalls were filled with Jewish institutions that had buddied up with buzzy establishments to serve New Yawky gastronomic fusions, a concept that is the Great Nosh’s guiding idea. Katz’s Deli paired with Santo Taco for a pastrami taco slathered with habanero and avocado salsas. Russ & Daughters paired with the Williamsburg-based Chinese restaurant Bonnie’s for daikon radish cakes dolloped with crème fraîche and smoked salmon.
At the Katz’s and Santo Taco stand, where men carved slices of the deli’s fabled pastrami, Jake Dell, the establishment’s fifth-generation owner, kept an eye on things.
“The beauty of this festival is its blending of food traditions,” Dell said. “Jewish food, in and of itself, is such a diaspora. Katz’s is the oldest institution here today, and Santo Taco is among the youngest, and there’s something beautiful about that, mixing it all together. Pickles and corn tortillas go hand in hand.”
Samuel Halpern, a senior at the Bronx High School of Science, braved a long line for a chicken tikka-stuffed bagel from Moonrise Bagels and the clouty downtown Indian restaurant Dhamaka.
“The Lower East Side used to be Jewish; that’s why we have Katz’s Deli and Russ & Daughters there,” Halpern said. “Now, everybody is in the Lower East Side, and Dhamaka is just blocks away from Russ & Daughters. New York City is a melting pot, so why wouldn’t our food continue to reflect that?”
Now in its second year, the Great Nosh is staged by the Jewish Food Society, a nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve and celebrate Jewish culinary heritage. “Jewish food is a story — it’s more than a flavor,” said Naama Shefi, the founder and director of the nonprofit, as she savored some shade at a picnic bench. “Russ & Daughters is like my synagogue, because I can feel the layers of flavor and time there. But these places that are the keepers of our tradition are also finding ways to keep it relevant.”
Audiences gathered inside the “Grandmas Tent” for a cooking presentation, staged in a studio kitchen with a checkered floor hosted by the food writers Gail Simmons and Nilou Motamed. Together, they presented cooks who taught family recipes for cabbage piroshki and Hungarian palacsinta. And spinning hits from a D.J. stage was Max Kulchinsky, who performed as part of a Jewish arts and music collective called Havurah.
“All the music you’re about to hear is 100 percent kosher,” Kulchinsky yelled, playing remixes of songs by artists like Amy Winehouse and the Beastie Boys.
As the afternoon waned and bellies filled with challah and wine, a graphic designer named Dalit Shalom considered the festival’s fusion concept.
“Jewish food in New York is a blueprint of Jewish history and immigration to New York,” said Shalom, wearing a Zabar’s cap adorned with daisies. “Jewishness is a culture of evolution, and the food here today is picking up traces of where it’s come from and where it’s going.”
One of the most popular side tent attractions was a beading workshop offered by the designer Susan Alexandra. And sitting in the grass beading bracelets of her own was Meg Spectre, an actress and performance artist. She’d spent the day tasting confections like the tikka masala-stuffed bagel and the black-and-white cookie sundae.
When asked what her favorite Jewish staple was, however, she grew pensive.
“My mother’s latkes,” Spectre said. “My mother learned it from her mother. And someday, I will know how to make them, too.”
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