To find out why Andy Kalish opened the world’s first vegan Jewish deli, look no further than his business partner and wife of 27 years, Gina Kalish.
Her philosophy of putting the planet before the plate didn’t bode well with her husband’s idea to fill the vacant space next door to Kal’ish — their bustling vegan deli and bakery in Uptown — with a schmaltzy, beefy Jewish deli.
So, she wouldn’t join him until her meatless demands were met.
“I proposed opening a Jewish deli,” Andy Kalish said. “She said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Well, how about if we open a Jewish deli, that, with everything that we make, has a vegan analogue? She said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Well, how about a vegan Jewish deli?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ”
And over Hanukkah 2019, they debuted Sam & Gertie’s to a line that stretched outside the store. Kalish named the deli after his maternal grandparents, Sam and Gertrude Stuart, to honor their struggles in Europe and dedication to the faith, particularly through food.
“They were the keepers and teachers of Judaica in my childhood,” he said. “I don’t ever recall being in restaurants with my grandparents. My grandmother made everything from scratch.”
Gertie’s homestyle cooking lives on in her grandson, who had to configure a meatless menu from square one without skimping on the traditional Jewish trappings of his childhood.
The solution, he found, lies in seitan: a high-protein meat substitute made of wheat gluten that became the base for Sam & Gertie’s meatless meat and fish. But the secret lies in how to make it, as no two recipes are the same. It took him six months to devise his own, but when he finished, Kalish said he had a seitanic ritual that worked across the menu.
“I went through 20, 30 different iterations of our mother base,” he said. “Instead of using all vital wheat gluten, I drifted into using grains, legumes and starches to make the product lighter, less chewy and less hard.”
For flavor, Kalish smokes the seitan. That brings out the beefy profiles that trick the tongue into thinking this food actually came from a cow or a fish. But the texture seals the deal, he said, which is often a dead giveaway in meat substitutes. So, he uses milled, smashed beans and grains to give the wheat protein a fatty, marbly presentation.
“There is a particular mouthfeel that corned beef and pastrami should have,” he said. “A sort of warmth and moisture. Your teeth don’t sail through it like Jell-O.”
Since the counter-serve joint seats no more than 16, diners wait up to 90 minutes every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for their food. The store is only open three days a week because it needs the other four to prepare, Kalish said, but his recipes work. And they don’t just attract Jews and vegans.
“I’d be surprised if 25% of the people that came through the deli were Jewish,” he said. “And I’d be surprised if more than half the people that ordered our food are, in fact, vegan.”
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Still, the deli’s diverse clientele doesn’t overshadow the community the Kalishes originally created it for. Sam & Gertie’s is the Ashkenazic brainchild of a social-worker-turned-restaurateur who watched Jewish delis disappear across the city. Yearning for a Reuben and the Judaica of his suburban Detroit childhood, he took matters into his own hands.
“There’s still Jews. There’s still people out there that must want this food. You want a place to go that’s sort of in the neighborhood,” he said. “I was feeling lonesome for home, but everything started disappearing.”
But by helping restore what this city is losing — delis — Kalish is doing more than selling sandwiches. He’s also breathing life into Chicago’s Jewish community.
“Everyone else has a defined homeland,” he said. “What is it that we have? What is it that we carry with us? That becomes our home, our security, our blanket. For mine and me, that’s Judaism and food.”
1309 W. Wilson Ave., 773-293-7413, samandgerties.com
[ Read more about the Keepers of the Flame series here. ]
Max Abrams is a freelance writer.
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