Like Silver, he grew up with Ms. Stahl’s, because his mother was from Brooklyn. After his mother died, he returned there for the first time in years only to find the knishery had disappeared. He felt like he lost a part of his mother, the way one might if a family home is torn down. “That was how she fed me. Feeding me part of her own childhood, it connected us—I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but now that it’s gone it’s so glaringly obvious.”
“Is there an expectation that foreign traditions ought to permeate our culture?” Leff asked back. “When something does make that jump that’s the exception rather than the rule. But it’s not like football play-offs; the worthiest don’t make the cut via a series of trials. Stuff just sneaks in. One can trace why tacos did make it, but there’s no explaining why knishes didn’t. Yes, they’re delicious, when right, but a great many things are delicious when right.”
