Al Roker Uncovers The Origins of Bagels and Lox in New York City

new york city is home to so many iconic foods but when the city that never sleeps wakes up for breakfast they want a bagel with a cream cheese smear piled high with locks there's no other city that makes a big or like a new york city bagel i have not had good bagels in any other city i came out the wound eating bagels it's time to head out of studio 1a and hit the road for a new kind of culinary adventure follow me as i taste some of the most iconic foods around the country and meet the families behind them together we're going to learn how a good meal has the power to connect us to our past our future and each other if new york's known for anything it's it's bagels and we got them all everything bagels rainbow bagels pumpkin bagels croissant bagels and of course you can't have them without a smear while the bagel first came from poland many food historians say its pairing with salmon and cream cheese originated right here in the big apple in this town few specialty food shops are as beloved and as historic as russ and daughters i've been waiting in line probably 15 20 minutes but it's definitely worth it i like the contrast of the flavor it's like a nice little bagel with a with salty lobster them up the salmon and cream cheese together like i try to make it at home but it's nothing compared to russet daughters they've been serving premium smoked fish to hungry new yorkers and folks from around the world for over 100 years just a few blocks from the store is the russ and daughter's cafe hi al hey how are you welcome to the wrestle daughter's cafe nice to see you great to have you here thanks for having us this is beautiful thank you nikki russ fetterman and josh russ tupper are the grandchildren of the original daughters these cousins are fourth generation owners carrying on their family's culinary legacy so this is russ and daughters this is our great grandfather joel russ who started the business his wife bella and his three daughters um we joshua had the same grandmother and she was the youngest of the three was it unusual at that time for because you usually you'd see so and so and sons but to see russ and daughters very unusual but i mean honestly if he'd had sons it probably would have been russian well thank goodness he did we like to think of him as a feminist but he was a good businessman joel russ immigrated from poland in 1907. and he started just standing on the streets of the lower east side selling schmaltz herring out of a barrel and a family could feed itself for two nights with one fish in 1914 he opened his first brick and mortar shop jay russ national appetizing joel and his wife had three daughters paddy ida and anne when they turned 11 each daughter began working with their dad what was their relationship like with him because he's your dad but he's also your boss yeah and i think he cared more about being the boss and the shopkeeper he was a new immigrant to this country who was just trying to survive and make a place for his family and that was his focus and he saw his children as as you know cheap labor the sisters grew up learning all aspects of the business in 1935 hattie ida and anne became joel's partners the shop was renamed russ and daughters making it the first in america to bear and daughters in its title when your great-grandfather decided to to start russ and daughters why the lower east side after ellis island this was the starting off point for the majority of poor jewish immigrants this is where they landed and they got their start and so he was just feeding basic food to other poor immigrants like himself at the turn of the century this neighborhood was one of the most densely populated places on the planet many immigrants from all around the world lived in overcrowded tenement buildings the conditions having a profound impact on their diets one of the things about lower east side jewish food is that a lot of food wasn't made at home when you don't have running water or when you don't have electric or gas stoves it's really hard to do very much cooking and so for for women who are responsible for feeding their families they had to get food from push carts from restaurants from bakeries joel russ was one of many vendors catering to this new population i've i've always been curious how did it come about or from what you've heard that somebody thought hey you know here's this round bread we'll put some fish on it but oh by the way before we do let's put some cream cheese some dairy on it yeah first of all rust and daughters is the torch bearer of what's called appetizing and this is a food tradition born here in new york and it's the sister food tradition to delicatessen both of which come up through the jewish kosher dietary rules you have to separate fish and dairy from meat so a delicatessen strictly speaking is for meat the appetizing store is where you go for fish and dairy things like herring smoke fish when we say bagel and lox most people are you know we're referring to a smoked salmon but the original bagel unlocks was not with smoke salmon technically lox or belly locks is salmon cured in salt which preserves fish without refrigeration there's no smoking involved and it's incredibly salty so it pairs perfectly with tangy cream cheese but who was the first person to put locks on a bagel so no one really knows how bagels locks and cream cheese all came together we know that bagels come from eastern europe we know that lox kind of comes basically from nova scotia kind of we know the cream cheese is an american food but what we know is that these things come together as part of a compromise between different generations of american jews jewish law prohibits cooking with most heat sources on the sabbath so the combo of bagels and lox created a filling meal for observant jews to enjoy on the day of rest it's good for a family but you or your daughter-in-law didn't have to be spending the previous day cooking as one of the country's oldest appetizing stores russ and daughters have been serving kosher meals for generations and the weekends are still their busiest days i can't think really of anything that's more new york than lox and bagels i agree i think that this is a food that came up through the eastern european jewish immigrants to new york but now it's transformed and just become new york food it belongs to all new yorkers in the united states women own less than 20 percent of all businesses at the iconic russ and daughters co-owner nikki russ betterman is building on the legacy of her grandmother and great aunts growing up you you follow the footsteps of strong women who may not have chosen this but took it on and obviously made it really successful what is it like for you following in those footsteps it's a tremendous feeling to be now the and great granddaughter justice ruth bader ginsburg was a good customer of ours her family came from the lower east side and she once said that before she knew the word feminist when she looked up at the sign russ and daughter she understood that women could have an impact your family's business russ and daughter has survived two world wars a depression here in the shadow of the world trade center why has this place been able to not just survive but thrive i think because in each generation there has been someone who wanted to do this this is food that people turn to for comfort in hard times and during the pandemic we saw that you know people were shipping russ and daughters all over the country to their loved ones because they couldn't be together and so sending you know bagels and locks and babka say you know i love you i miss you here let me feed you having a smear over zoom oh there was a lot of that okay so you can get smoked fish pretty much everywhere these days but not quite like this the salmon sold at russ and daughters is prized for its high fat content from the milder gaspe nova to the smokier scottish and this gourmet fish is all sliced by hand when you hold it up i mean it's it's almost translucent yeah i think we should show you how we get at that then yeah being a sharper utensil what could possibly go wrong it takes up to six months of training to master the slicing technique here so al i hear you have some knife skills well i've been in a fighter too but it's probably nothing like your show how long have you been slicing sam i've been at the store for 20 years um so i've been slicing for a while all right so so i watch people slice and i i'm amazed at how patient because it seems like that's part of the the skill the reality is when you know how to slice it is one of the most relaxing things you can do very zen very zen meditative right the trick is don't look anywhere on the fish you have to really feel the fish be the fish be the fish which is a very difficult concept to train someone um and particularly the first couple slices are don't be upset okay if they don't look great the idea is to make a consistently thick slice you making faces at me no i'm just watching you not watch the fish all right okay here we go be the fish you should you should look i should you got a sharp knife in your hand always and you can see that as you change the angle of the knife it changes the thickness yeah right so that's drastically more than you think that's more than oh my gosh that's a very thick all those chulitas chiletas yeah chops ah in spanish i was going to say that sounded that didn't sound nice to me does the way you cut it affect the taste of it or the texture of it the texture which affects the experience of the salmon it's almost like you're eating the essence of salmon not salmon it's very delicate it's a very appealing texture and mouth feel yeah but thinner josh thanks so much nice meeting you such pleasure to have you ah smoke him if you got him [Music] i'm here at the acme smoked fish factory now there is something fishy going on in there and you better believe i'm gonna find out what it is [Music] the folks at acme process smoke and pack nearly eight million pounds of fish every year they sell to eateries all over the country including russ and daughters it smells of smoke and it smells a fish that's the way it's supposed to be smells like new york city yes all right so as you know in any food food plant food safety is of paramount importance right i see you got your boots on i just happen to be wearing these awesome [Music] i'll walk you through the process of how salmon turns into smoke salmon adam caslow is the fourth generation owner of acme smoked fish his great-grandfather harry brownstein started selling fish after immigrating from russia to brooklyn harry started in the smoke fish business in the early 1900s in 1906 to be exact out of a push part out of a a horse-drawn wagon wow you would go around buying fish from different smoke houses throughout brooklyn and queens and had himself the sales route you know he worked close to 45 years i mean his dream was to open up his own smokehouse and it took him 45 years to finally achieve that adam now runs a massive smoked fish empire supplying many of new york city's popular bagel shops from h to essa bagel acme also selling to national grocers like trader joe's at the end of the day it's all about the fish we bring in fish from all over the world smoked salmon is probably the most popular thing that we make and our salmon come from different places norway scotland chile and alaska it can take up to five days to make smoked salmon every order is made to the buyers tastes from the type of salmon to the curing method the first step cutting a whole fish into fillets whoa yeah so this is a 12 kilo whole salmon i caught over here in long island sound no i'm just this is an atlantic salmon farm raised we use atlantic salmon because it has the most fat and fat equals flavor when making smoked smoked salmon right so what are you cutting out the like the backbone there carving into a fish this size requires expert hands after the fish is filleted it's preserved with salt the fish is then treated with a wet brine or a dry cure okay so let's dry dry cure some some salmon yeah first thing we're going to get it on to the wrap okay so see if you can pick up this salmon grab it by the by the tail okay grab with your other hand and we're going to lay it on to this the screen okay perfect great step two we're gonna grab a handful itself there's just a thin layer yup right along the top of the dorsal like kind of down the center line that's it that's it this fish is rather large so traditionally we would probably draw a wet run this fish but for smaller fish the dry cure lasts about 24 hours okay that's a huge fish after curing the fillets are cold smoked for up to 20 hours this process imparts a subtle smoky flavor let me show you how the smoker works so these are a collection of that wood chip blend that we were talking about earlier there are different ways to smoke fish fillets hot smoking results in flaky opaque fillets unlike traditional locks smoked salmon is cold smoked below 85 degrees this helps the fish retain its silky texture and makes it perfect for slicing ready to help me get this bad boy all right all right hey now let's close her up whoa shut her down after the smoker the fish is cooled then packed for shipping what would your great grandfather say if he could see all of it i think he'd be amazed of how difficult it was for him to achieve his dream right now his descendants have been able to build upon that dream and build us into one of the preeminent smokers in the us [Music] back on the lower east side two sisters inspired by their jewish heritage are on a mission to make the food they loved growing up in a more sustainable way ladies nice to meet you thank you want to show me around please please lead away erica and sarah kabersky are the co-owners of orchard grocer an entirely vegan market inspired by classic delicatessens they want to make the vegan lifestyle easier for all right after college they opened their first business a shoe store called moo shoes we opened our vegan shoe store 20 years ago how are they they're comfortable about five years ago we decided that we were gonna update it by adding our vegan grocer basically because it seemed like that's what our customers want after asking us what our shoes were made of probably where should i go eat was the second most common question so we decided to create an experience where they could just go eat next door growing up in queens the sisters jewish culture and food were closely linked they had 10 jewish delis in their neighborhood alone probably every sunday there's a tradition in our family dozen bagels at the bagel store a dozen always meant 15. i don't know why that was but and with the cream cheese and locks and that was just how we spent our sundays both sisters became vegan as teenagers but felt they lost a piece of their roots by giving up certain foods i think our parents were supportive of our changes to the vegan lifestyle we grew up in a very culturally jewish household so all of our traditions were just based around food today a lot of folks are going vegan for a variety of reasons from reported health benefits to concerns over animal welfare for the sisters it's also a matter of global importance we're watching climate change happen right now and i think that's causing a lot of people to think twice about what they're eating and how they are contributing so it makes sense to us that it is becoming so mainstream in 2017 sarah and erica saw not just an opportunity to satisfy a growing market but to pay homage to their jewish roots we wanted to have a good sandwich selection that really epitomizes like new york deli food so obviously a bagel and mox was going to be there orchard grocer sells a variety of vegan sandwiches including rubens and tuna melts but the sisters are most passionate about serving up a sense of nostalgia people are so worried about giving things up so i think just creating those alternatives and just something that people are familiar with and gives them that feeling of home yeah like we haven't had to give up our sunday tradition of bagels and locks to help make their unique deli a reality the sisters hired vegan chef nora vargas nora shares a passion for plant-based foods she also knows how to turn carrots into salty locks how did you come up i mean you have to think okay what can mimic a smoked salmon yeah and so how did you was it look like like well the only orange vegetable out there other than a sweet potato is carrot we know the texture that we need to go for we know the flavor that we want to go for so we started with the color and then we just kind of built it from there okay so let's get started i'm really fascinated okay all right i'm excited so we have prepared what do we have maybe 10 pounds of carrots here for you these are huge these would have been huge carrots seriously yeah like the size of my forearm but you you have you have sliced them very thin on a mandolin yes yes exactly all right so we're all gloved up and we are going to the next step in this process is to apply our rub to our carrots so in here we have a mixture of sugar salt and the rest i can't tell you about oh it's a secret kind of thing so this this would be kind of like the brine that you would use the dry brine that you would use on fish exactly except it's going on vegetables yeah we got our inspiration for a lot of different components of this recipe from the way that you would actually prepare fish if we were preparing fish and not carrots right coat everything interesting oh no don't smell it don't don't figure out the secret okay now because if i figure it out she's gonna have to kill me so i'm just gonna start rubbing just smushing everything in there once we get everything coated we would let this sit for three to six hours probably okay great so i think we've i think we nailed it okay in here another secret ingredient definitely yeah a lot of secrets here at orchard i'll tell you a little bit okay okay so it's a combination of olive oil and aquafaba aqua are you familiar with that i don't know you know when you're opening up a can of beans right and you got to drain them yes the stuff that you drain out that's aquafaba aquafaba bean water it's bean bean juice yes exactly okay yeah okay so i'm gonna pour okay and then you can kind of do the same process okay same process just squish it all in there okay yeah perfect after we had let our carrots sit for three to six hours um we toss them in the oven so they bake we like to call it cold smoking to sound like classy like the process of making smokes exactly yeah that does look very much like smoke and what would a bagel and lox be without the cream cheese this vegan spread is made with raw cashews salt some secret spices and coconut oil all blended together with soft tofu should we make a bagel sure let's do it [Music] this is a really terrific idea thank you thank you for opening my eyes oh thank you so much i appreciate it that's fantastic okay a great way to finish things up i mean we've we've seen the history we've gone to the past we were in the present and you have brought us the locks and bagels of the future a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon is a uniquely american combination born from jewish roots transformed by local ingredients and carried on by new generations this breakfast tradition has truly stood the test of time when it comes to food in new york city [Music] you

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Length: 24min 45sec (1485 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 06 2021