No, the knish is not sexy. It’s brownish and rotund and anything but elegantly shaped. But it is food that will make you feel good, fill you up on the cheap before a long day of work, or sop up the pain of loss or an unexpected breakup.
Some New Yorkers believe that it’s no longer easy—or possible—to get a good knish. Silver disagrees, and she makes a strong case with her “Where To Eat A Good Knish” map, which includes Judy’s Knishes, established in 2014, among her growing list of 16 approved sources in the five boroughs. So why isn’t the knish more popular?
Growing up, Wildman thought every American household stocked knishes. “It had never occurred to me that this wasn’t something that was common from here to California and beyond,” he says.
People like Wildman and Silver attach a profound importance to the knish. To see why more people don’t, I turned to Jim Leff, the founder of Chowhound and a retired food obsessive who once catalogued outer borough eats.
