Hey Kiddo, We Get You A Salami – Salami and Eggs
Everybody has some relatives that are a little, let’s say…different. For us it was Aunt Esther and Uncle Stan, E and S for short. Elderly when I was young, they used to bounce back and forth between sparsely furnished apartments in Philadelphia and Florida. While I don’t recall whether or not they removed the plastic from their furniture, I wouldn’t be surprised if they left it on.
My parents once went to pick them up for dinner and Esther came out wearing her slip outside her skirt. She saw nothing wrong with it. At the Passover seder one year with dozens of guests, Esther started to disrobe because she was hot. It was par for the course. On another occasion, my wife and I went out to eat with them at Little Pete’s (they always went to Little Pete’s), a diner-like restaurant in downtown Philadelphia. “Where is she from? What does she do?” Stan asked me, even though my wife was sitting across from them at the table. For some reason they refused to talk to her directly.
During the winter of my senior year of college I went to Miami as a prospective graduate student, and since I was not too far away, I decided to visit E and S in Delray Beach. Needless to say, it was an interesting visit. It was winter and I was in Florida applying to graduate schools for marine science, so naturally, I wanted to go to the beach. They were happy to oblige, so they drove me and parked. As I sat in the sun, swam in the water, and walked down the beach for a couple of hours, they sat there in the parked car, waiting.
That evening after Esther went to bed I sat up talking to Stan. He told me about his youth in Poland, finding his way to what was then known as Palestine, and fighting for the British during World War II, before Israeli independence. At one point during our conversation he must have asked in his vaguely Polish accent if I wanted some salami. He opened up the refrigerator, which was practically bare, except for an all-beef kosher bullet salami. He took a knife, slicing off little pieces on which we nibbled as we talked. Stan loved kosher salami.
While Uncle Stan and I ate the salami cold, as a snack, on the rare occasions we got one at home growing up, I don’t ever recall eating it cold. It was always seared in a pan and then made into salami and eggs if it was for breakfast or a fried salami sandwich if it was lunchtime. Both very different, but both delicious. I wouldn’t consider eating it any other way.
The bite-size pieces of salami were fried in a skillet, with eggs scrambled over them in the rendered fat. The Jewish answer to bacon and eggs. For sandwiches we would slice quarter inch thick rounds of the salami and sear them until crisp, pressing down on each piece in the pan as the edges curled up. We then placed them on bread to make a sandwich – always white bread for me – with nothing else but mustard and hot pickled cherry peppers from a jar. It was a rare treat.
The other day I was walking through the refrigerated section of my local supermarket where the pickles, hummus, and cheeses are laid out, and there in front of me was a stack of kosher bullet salamis. I must have paid them no mind on scores of previous visits, but this time they caught my eye. It’s probably been a decade since I last had kosher salami, and with my kids home from college, why not? It was an excuse to share with them this delicacy from my youth.
I scrambled a few pieces into salami and eggs one day, and ate some slices fried on a sandwich the next. And it was perfect; exactly as I remembered. At some point my thoughts turned to my Uncle Stan and I could practically hear him say, “Hey kiddo, we get you a salami.”
Salami and Eggs
You can find kosher bullet salami in supermarkets anywhere there is a sizable Jewish population. Hebrew National is the most common brand, but there may be others depending on where you live. While rounds of cooked salami alongside fried eggs would be perfectly fine, I grew up eating the salami cut into bite-size pieces and fried, then scrambled into eggs. With toasted pumpernickel, rye, or a bagel, it makes a satisfying breakfast.
10 minutes, serves 1
3 oz. kosher beef salami, cut into bite-size pieces
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. milk, cream, or half and half
1 Tbsp. butter
- Cut the salami into roughly half-inch, bite-size pieces. Cook in a skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the pieces are hot and seared all around, about 5 to 7 minutes. Leave salami in pan.
- While the salami is cooking, beat eggs and milk, cream, or half and half, and a splash of water in a small bowl. Set aside.
- When the salami is cooked, add butter and melt over medium heat. Add eggs and cook, stirring constantly, until eggs are scrambled. Serve hot with buttered toast or a bagel.
Max, I don’t know if you are aware that my father was in the business of selling smoke meat and cheese to delicatessens. I worked with him from a very young age. There was a manufacturer of kosher salami and baloney on Third St. between Thompson and Girard. It was called Superior Meats. Hebrew National was out of New York; Superior was the Philly brand. Btw, the name for a small (1 lb.) salami was a “midget”. A regular salami was about 30 inches long and weighed about 6 lb.
Now the real treat was to pick up a midget at Superior and go across the street and buy some rolls at the Polish bakery. If the rolls were still warm from the oven they tasted like cake. If not, when we got back to my father’s garage we would warm them and the salami slices on the heater in my father’s tiny office, and slather the bread with Frank’s mustard. That was a sandwich, which probably lead to my heart attack forty years later.
Hi Sol – Thanks for sharing. Great story – other than the heart attack part, of course. It is a treat, although one not to be enjoyed too often!! And a 6 pound salami…that’s a lot of salami.
Max
btw, “Kiddo” was the “dude” of the 30’s and 40’s. My Aunt Pearle called me that all the time.
Hi Max,
Interesting take on salami. I have never eaten salami warm, but it was a”lunch meat” staple in our house growing up. We too lived around Polish bakeries, but in west Detroit and ate it on bread from the bakery, mostly pumpernickel. I gave up salami a long time ago, but now I see it served on fancy charcuterie trays. Ps. my mom always used the term “kiddo” Is there some Jewish significance to that?
Hey Sandy – I’m betting the salami you ate was primarily pork. This is beef – kosher, after all. And I’m sure that gave it a somewhat different flavor. The stuff on charcuterie trays is definitely different. Although all of them are basically preserved cooked sausages of different forms. As for kiddo, that’s just something my Uncle Stan said. I’m guessing it’s an age or era thing more than anything. Max