“People used to say, ‘the streets in New York are paved in gold,'” Laura Silver said to me over the phone. “No they’re not. They’re paved in knishes.”
Born in Brooklyn and bred in Queens, Silver is the world’s leading authority on the knish. And as the author of the authoritative and charming Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food, she knows just how vital it is to Jews’—and New Yorkers’—culinary heritage, even if everyone else forgets about the poor thing.
A bomb of starchy fillings like nutty kasha groats or mashed potato with caramelized onions, wrapped in a thin sheet of dough and baked, the knish is claimed by Russians, Poles, and Ukrainians, and came to New York on the backs of Jewish immigrants. The way Silver sees it, the knish is a quintessential New York food, one that filled stomachs for pennies on the dollar and granted immigrants an economic opportunity to build a future for their children’s children.
