New documentary reveals fifty shades of kreplach

"Deli Man,” Eric Greenberg Anjou’s irresistible and deeply affecting new documentary, opens with a shot of upside-down mustard jars on a delicatessen counter. On the soundtrack, Frank London’s trumpet plays a soulful shtetel refrain. Instead of Tevye, we are introduced to David “Ziggy” Gruber, who will be our on-again-off-again guide through this “modern day Isaac Bashevis Singer world,” which has a limited release throughout the city on Friday, March 6.

Ziggy is the real life “Sam Posner, the Pickle Man,” played by Peter Riegert in Joan Micklin Silver’s 1988 film “Crossing Delancey.” He even has his real-life Izzy Grossman — though she’s gentile — the sweet and lovely Mary McCaughy, an Irish​ ​bubelah​. 

In addition to listening to many instantly recognizable mavens (Jerry Stiller, Larry King, Alan Dershowitz and Fyvush Finkel) wax rhapsodic about their favorite delis, we meet the geniuses behind the counters of these establishments: in Manhattan, Dennis Howard at the Carnegie, Barry Orenstein at Artie’s, Steve Auerbach at the gone, but not forgotten, Stage; in Queens, the wise and warmhearted Jay Parker at Ben's Best; in Beverly Hills, the brothers Mendelson, Mark and David; in San Francisco, Evan Bloom and Leo Beckerman at Wise Sons Deli (“open since 5771”).

And, of course, there is Ziggy himself, a third-generation, Yiddish-speaking, French-trained chef, who owns and orchestrates Kenny and Ziggy’s Deli in that bastion of American Jewry, Houston, Texas. (Those rocket scientists at the Johnson Space Center shouldn’t be without their ​blintzes​.)

As Ziggy himself points out in the film, he could have made easier career choices, such as simply staying put at La Gavroche, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Manhattan, where he had already achieved a measure of success. But Ziggy had had enough of “this fancy-schmancy business.” 

Bygone era