South Bend Indiana's Calabrian Connection
Three Italian specialty shops in South Bend, Indiana, are directly descended from a wave of Calabrian immigrants who settled there 100 years ago.
Northern Indiana • Kosher Deli
Midwest Kosher delights South Bend with authentic specialties
Walking the aisles of Midwest Kosher & Deli on the south side of South Bend, IN, is like entering a parallel universe, with all the goods one expects from a small grocery—even wheat thins, graham crackers and pizza pockets—but with unfamiliar packaging and unusual brand names: Lieber’s, Hoffman’s, Gefen, Unger’s.
There are also fresh Nova lox from New York, cans of pickles and olives from Israel, and frozen food from gefilte fish to Middle Eastern specialties like stuffed phyllo bourekas. Some items sent me straight to Google, such as a multicolored mix of dry beans labeled alternately Cholunt and Cholent. I had a sense of being happily off center, as if traveling to a foreign country without leaving South Bend.
Aryeh Kramer, co-owner and general manager, explains, “We are kind of a community service toward the Kosher-eating clientele as far as groceries go. On the other hand, a good portion of the deli’s sales comes from the general public.”
Business has been steadily growing since the grocery and cold deli counter opened in 2012. The hot deli and kitchen were added in 2017. Kramer adds, “Kosher food is something new, something you don’t see much of around here. Once they are here, we usually get a lot of repeat customers."
Photo 1: “The philosophy we have here is to help as many people as we can. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish or not,” says Brandes. While the grocery primarily serves the Orthodox community, the deli’s clientele is equally Jewish and non-Jewish.
Photo 2: Kosher symbols appear on about half of the national brands in a regular grocery store, but many shoppers want a particular Kosher brand or symbol. There are a host of different symbols and standards within the Kosher universe.
Midwest Kosher & Deli is the only Kosher-certified deli in Indiana, and outside of Chicago, the only place like it from Detroit down to Nashville, says the deli’s affable chef, David Brandes. Kosher style is different, he cautions, and often just indicates a restaurant offering the atmosphere of a New York deli, without following the complex and extensive Jewish dietary laws.
On a recent visit, one customer, a displaced New Yorker, was brought almost to tears by the familiar sights and aromas. Real New York bagels! Hot potato knish! And Dr. Brown’s cream soda to wash it down. The pastrami is the undeniable star of the menu. For a non-bacon-eating people, Jewish chefs have come up with a good match in salty, savory goodness. Midwest Deli slices theirs thin and cooks it up with crispy edges.
The roast beef and pastrami are made in-house, as are the breaded and grilled chicken and all the sandwiches and side salads. “The atmosphere we are trying to inculcate is heimish. “Heimish” is homely, comfortable, casual,” says Brandes.
The deli acts as a hub for the Orthodox Jewish community of about 100 families on the south side of South Bend. As the only gathering place other than the synagogue, Brandes says of Midwest Deli, “We get the news first. We know who is pregnant first, we know who is moving here.... We are the gossip hub.”
The market day that many local immigrant communities organize around regular shipments of specialty foods from Chicago is even more pronounced here. Because Saturday’s Sabbath is a holy day on which cooking is prohibited and which features a feast “like Thanksgiving dinner every week,” as Brandes puts it, “Friday is cook day and Thursday is shop day.” Fresh bagels, breads and cakes, as well as meat and fish, arrive from New York and Chicago, and the store bustles with activity.
Catering has become an important part of the business—for celebrations in which the entire Orthodox community comes together and for small office parties.
Getting short on space, they are scouting out locations to enlarge the grill into a separate restaurant. Maybe they will even start making their own bagels. “People are always asking about bagels,” says Brandes.
Midwest Kosher & Deli
560 W. Ireland Rd.
South Bend, IN
574.855.1791
midwestkosherdeli.com
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