From Pushcarts to Pizza Knishes: A Walking Tour of "Little Romania"
Taught by Sarah Lohman
Sarah Lohman is a culinary historian and the author of the bestselling books Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods and Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. She focuses on the history of food as a way to access the stories of diverse Americans. Endangered Eating was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by Amazon’s Editors, Food & Wine, and Adam Gopnik on the Milk Street podcast. It was a finalist for the Nach Waxman Prize for Food & Drink Scholarship and winner of the Ohioana Library Book Prize for Nonfiction. Lohman’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and NPR. Lohman has lectured across the country, from the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC to The Culinary Historians of Southern California
Hearty knishes, delicate fishes, and piles of meat: these are the feature foods of some of the city's oldest businesses that dot Houston street. We'll spend 90 minutes exploring the neighborhood once known as Little Romania, a sub-culture of the Jewish Lower East Side, and learn the history of regional Jewish cuisine. We'll taste our way through classic LES dishes, as well as some of the innovative new products that have kept these traditional food purveyors alive.
This tour meets at 10 am in front of Yonah Schimmel's Knishes, 137 E. Houston Street. From there, we'll proceed to Russ & Daughters and Katz's Delicatessen. Each stop features a tasting which is included in the price of the tour. Please dress appropriately for the weather!
