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From Ashrams to Smoked Meat

by · July 19th, 2008
Food History, Jewish Culture, Meat, Restaurants

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Zane Caplansky is not your average deli man, if there ever was such a thing. After a peripatetic culinary career which has included opening a tea house on the steppes of the Himalayas to managing an Indian pizza restaurant, Caplansky has now brought smoked meat manna to Montrealers living in the otherwise desert of corned beef-oriented Toronto.

A Toronto native, Zane’s been hooked on smoked meat since he was 16, when his then girlfriend took him to the famed Schwartz’s Deli in Montreal. A die-hard fan since, he has even been known to sneak away from ashram study north of the city to get his Schwartz’s fix. Now, he has brought the house-cured and smoked tradition to a tiny but fully outfitted kitchen in downtown Toronto, which includes an in-house smoker—a rarity today.

At Caplansky’s, Zane hand cuts each brisket and uses only local beef and bread and pickles made in Toronto. Also on the menu are homemade soups—borscht and matzo ball (he’s still tinkering with the recipe for the fluffiest balls)—and, to make the artery-clogging deli experience complete, addictive hand-cut fries.

Is it any surprise that Caplansky’s sold out on opening day last month? Zane had to close for nearly a week to allow for his briskets to cure and smoke in due time. And just this week, Zane was featured in NOW magazine as having one the best sandwiches in Toronto.

In fact, something larger is at work here. Deli downtown? Most mom and pop shops and delis remain all but faded memories and nostalgic reveries of things past. Toronto, like most North American cities, lost its downtown Jewish immigrant food culture when suburbia became the norm for families in the postwar period. But what we are witnessing here is nothing short of a return migration.

Joining Caplansky’s downtown is Bagel World, an old Toronto lunch counter set to open a new branch on Bloor Street, in the heart of the old Jewish quarter. While some people have charted the death of the deli across North America, most notably David Sax over at Save the Deli, I can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of a renaissance. In this era of vintage klezmer hip hop and other new takes on tradition, this might just be the latest in re-gifting Jewish trends.

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7 Responses to “From Ashrams to Smoked Meat”

  1. Shelley Says:
    July 20th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    Caplansky’s has soul. You’ve nailed it in this piece! Here, tradition is catapulted to the future, and the future tastes great!

  2. cello Says:
    July 20th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

    Too bad none of them are ever, y’know… actually _kosher_…

  3. David Sax Says:
    July 20th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    Lovely piece Lara. While the deli has declined terribly, I agree that we are at the nexus of a new deli era (with labor outsourced from New Delhi). It’s funny that it takes guys like Zane to make it happen. Basically, he’s doing what deli owners did a century ago, before everyone sold pre-cured, pre-cooked, pre-cut everything. Progress by regression. Or forward thinking nostalgia.

    Who cares…so long as it tastes good.

    And cello, I think it’s too bad that none are kosher, but don’t blame us reform treyf eaters, blame the glatt establishment and the hasidic mafias. Too many hands in the kosher cookie jar…

  4. Serge Says:
    August 27th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    I dunno. Why would we be at the nexus of a new deli era? It may have been traditional three generations ago, but it’s certainly not traditional to anyone who grew up recently — falafel, if anything, is the new deli. After all, the falafel joints and shawarma grills are often-kosher joints popular in actually-existing Jewish communities.

    I enjoy deli food, so I really want to like them. But these new delis seem to run on nostalgia and irony, the culinary equivalent to the hipster who lards his description of a downtown Friday-night klezmer show with Yiddishisms and knowing winks. You know, a downtown break to get your basic fix of Jew, and that at a comfortably ironic distance.

  5. mememe Says:
    September 13th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    bloor street has never been “the heart of the old jewish quarter”

    try college

    :)

  6. Lara Says:
    September 13th, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    Actually, the historic Jewish community did move north to Bloor Street and Annex environs, even though the original historic Jewish community of Toronto was located much further downtown, located on and around what is today Dundas Street.

  7. Hank Says:
    November 19th, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    wow can’t believe Bagel World is opening on Bloor St, been going there since the 50′s, grew up at Bathurst and Lawrence

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