On Making a New School Deli Meat

Maybe you were intrigued by the hype around mortadella last year (known among influencers as “morty d”); maybe you’re nostalgic for the school lunchbox standard bologna sandwich; or maybe, like the high school graduate mentioned in David Brooks’ much mocked column, you find yourself intimidated and confused by the mention of soppressata or capocollo.

Thankfully, Jeremy Umansky is here to help you navigate the wonderful world of cured meats. As chef and co-owner of Larder Delicatessen in Cleveland, Umansky has made a name for himself as an expert on culinary preservation: He’s particularly known for dusting koji-infused rice flour — the microbial culture traditionally used to ferment soy sauce, sake and miso — on everything from pork chops to venison, and then leaving them to ferment, creating wild new flavors and textures in the process.

Along the way, Umansky has become a de facto expert on global meat curing traditions — learning the rules in order to break, or at least tweak, them. In his conversation with Gastropod, Umansky helps decode the difference between common cured meats, reveals his secret to delicious gefilte fish, and shares some of the philosophy behind Larder’s unique offerings.

For more on the history and science of deli meat, including how the U.S. military developed the technology used to make industrial sliced turkey and ham today, tune into Gastropod’s recent episode: “Deli is Short for Delicious — But Are Your Pastrami and Bologna Sandwiches Giving You Cancer?”

Gastropod: What are some of the cured meats you make at Larder?

Jeremy Umansky: Oh gosh. Literally, when I say everything under the sun… We examine what cured meat is in many, many different cultures. So I think the question would be, Is there an animal whose flesh you haven’t turned into charcuterie yet? And is there a method that you haven’t yet used to do that?

Obviously, I can’t get elephant, nor would I want that. But we’ve used a lot of different animals and many techniques from all over the world. The fun thing is this can be done with almost any animal. If you wanted to make a deli meat out of tuna, you could. It’s about these methods and techniques, and not necessarily the ingredients going into them.

Speaking of those techniques, could you tell us a bit about one of the most famous products, pastrami?

Traditionally, pastrami would have been goose, spiced with coriander and black pepper, maybe a little bit of juniper, and maybe a little onion and garlic. It would be brined, and then it would go through a two-stage cooking process where it would be smoked and then steamed.

Eventually, through late 19th and early 20th century migration, especially Jewish migration from Eastern Europe, pastrami made its way to New York City. Goose was harder to get in America, but one of the inexpensive cuts was beef navel. This cut is very similar to pork belly: It looks like bacon, a lot of fat with some streaky meat.

Over time, people get a little bit of money and they want to show it off. And what’s the next sexiest thing on the cow? The brisket. That’s when we start to see pastrami become what we now know it as, and brisket is fantastic for the pastrami technique. It’s a tough cut of meat and, while it is very fatty, it does have a lot of meat compared to the navel.

Over time, very little has changed with the spice set: that coriander, black pepper, and maybe a little bit of juniper. But that mix can be really harsh and really bitey, so adding a little onion powder or garlic powder kind of tames it out. At the delicatessen, we add wild mushroom powder, dark cocoa, and coffee, because those things reinforce the earthiness, the smoke, the black pepper.

What about bologna?

In Italy, there is no bologna — there is mortadella, a style of sausage meat from the Bologna area. They say Bologna, we say “baloney.” If you were to hold a decent quality, off-the-shelf Italian mortadella next to a slice of Oscar Mayer bologna, they’re going to look nearly the same. Aside from the quality of the animals used and some of the ingredients, they’re going to have a relatively similar mouthfeel and flavor profile.

To make those meats, you need to finely grind the meat and fat into a paste. Literally, I want you to think of buttercream frosting, right out of the fridge and still a little stiff. You stuff it into a casing and poach it gently. It’s silky, and it’s smooth, because you’ve gotten it to such a small particulate matter.

One thing to note: It’s easier to use a machine to strip everything, and put it between big blades or rollers, than it is to sit there and delicately grind things and stuff them in a nice mosaic, layering all the different shapes. That’s why bologna became more ubiquitous in our culture as deli meat.

How do you balance these old traditions with keeping things fresh?

I had heard that Jewish delis were going extinct. I was like, I’m going to do my part to prevent that. So I view Larder as my attempt to steward Jewish food culture in North America.

Part of that is us continuing the stereotype of what a deli meat is, but putting our own interpretation on it. Like, we’re going to use pastured two-week-aged turkey in this bologna instead of low-quality industrial beef. For gefilte fish, we take the raw mix and we griddle it in a cast iron skillet. It’s like a burger patty, almost. We serve that at the restaurant and people are like, this is definitely not my grandma’s gefilte fish — and if she made it this way, I would be eating it all the time!

We’ve heard from people saying you’re too modern, and I’m like, well, of course I’m modern. Even though I wanted to recreate the delicatessen of yesteryear, it’s still the 2020s. We still have motorized kitchen equipment, and I have a computer in my pocket and can look up food science questions whenever I want.

It’s important to have those modern sensibilities about your food, because that’s the only way our traditions are going to survive. They have to be delicious and they have to be attractive to the people who are here, and who want to eat them now.