New York corned beef, cured for Southern ills

In a land without delis, Howard Wurtzel stepped up to feed the cravings of the Yankees

BYLINE:    JOHN KESSLER

DATE: February 12, 2005

PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)

EDITION: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

SECTION: News

PAGE: A1

Hear ye, hear ye!

The second meeting of the New York Corned Beef Society of Atlanta is now in session, and the attendees are a little, as they say in Yiddish, famisched.

Helene Hagen and Barbara Schafer of Dunwoody stride in and warily survey the motley crew of displaced New Yorkers and pool players at Twain's Billiards & Tap in Decatur. Both women have tinted glasses, pantsuits, big and bigger hair. "Is this the right place? Our tongues are hanging out for the corned beef," Hagen says.

"Is there a secret pledge or club handshake?" half-jokes Andy Vernon, a Stone Mountain physician. "Are these the board members?" he asks of the group gathered in a corner of the patio around the man of the hour, Howard Wurtzel.

Wurtzel looks up from the three huge pots set over gas burners. In each, massive pink cuts of meat bob about in steaming, yellowy murk. "No handshake," he laughs. "This is a very open society. And membership dues are the same for everybody: free."

It is 4:30 on a cold but mercifully sunny January afternoon at this pool hall, already overflowing with people, their loud chatter booming in accents more Mason than Dixon. They may be a little unsure of the whole "society" business, but they know what they're here for: the corned beef that Wurtzel prepares once a month. Real New York corned beef that's served hot from the pot, hand sliced, smeared with deli mustard and piled high on rye bread -- higher than any pimento cheese sandwich could ever dare to go.

As he slices the meat in Twain's kitchen with his 30-year-old Hamilton Beach electric knife, Wurtzel muses over the clattery whirr. "After everything I've done in my life, what I'm known for is my corned beef. Go figure."

So how did this 68-year-old Army veteran, Freudian psychoanalyst and multimedia artist become the corned beef maven of Atlanta?

Classic New York

It all started, of course, at a New York deli.

In the 1940s, when Wurtzel was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, he made a weekly excursion with his father, Philip, a hard-working Polish immigrant handyman and house painter. Every Sunday, the two of them would ride a trolley across the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan's Lower East Side and walk one block to Katz's Deli.

Open since 1888 and familiar from Meg Ryan's, er, outburst in "When Harry Met Sally," Katz's is one of New York's classics. These old-time delis opened originally to provide kosher meals for single male immigrants. Preserving beef in "corns" of coarse salt was a well established practice both in Eastern Europe and Ireland; the two cultural traditions met and married in New York.

Wurtzel remembers everything about these outings to Katz's: The way people got fatter sandwiches when they waited in line with dollars wrapped around their pinkies. The way the nice lady behind the counter gave him a "taste" (a 3-ounce slice that the USDA would now call a serving). The way it felt being alone with his dad.

As Wurtzel's life took him across the country, he looked for a corned beef sandwich -- just a nice, simple corned beef sandwich -- to make him feel at home. He found bupkis. Nothing.

Only one solution

Wurtzel's first stopover in deli dystopia was El Paso, Texas, 1968. He and his wife, Ettie, suddenly found themselves living on an Army post in this border town after he was drafted. The other families were from Northern cities and, as Wurtzel recalls, "they all missed their corned beef."

There was only one solution. Ettie found her husband a recipe in her Gourmet cookbook. Brisket, water, salt, garlic, pickling spices, bay leaf and the all-important saltpeter -- the nitrate that keeps the meat pink no matter how long it cooks. Let it cure in the brine for weeks, then simmer it to fall-apart submission. The Wurtzels' corned beef parties were the stuff of Army base legend.

By 1975, the couple was living in Philadelphia, and, believe it or not, he couldn't find any good delis there either. Delis, yes. New York delis, definitely not. Howard and Ettie decided they had only one option: open their own, even as he was in psychoanalytic training and she was taking care of three young children.

"It lasted eight months but felt like five years," he recalls. "Never again."

By the early 1990s, Wurtzel began curtailing his psychiatry practice and spending more time painting and sculpting. He and Ettie relocated to Avondale Estates to live near their now-grown children. This time, he knew he'd get a good corned beef sandwich only if he made it himself.

Most restaurants buy their corned beef "cooked and cold," Wurtzel says, the resignation oozing from his Brooklynese diphthongs. "If you want it warmed up, then they invariably put it in a microwave."

Last December, Wurtzel decided to open up his corned beef party to the public. His son, Eitan, and daughter, Tania, who own Twain's, offered the space. He thought to call it a corned beef club. "Then Ettie said, 'Why don't you call it a society? It sounds fancier.' "

"Not fancier," Ettie corrects. "More social."

"More social. But anyhow," Wurtzel continues with a twinkle of irony in his voice, "that's how the New York Corned Beef Society of Atlanta was formed."

The first event drew 50 people solely through word of mouth, selling every scrap of beef.

Following a story in the Atlanta Jewish Times, the second meeting did twice the numbers, and Wurtzel was ready with seven briskets. In January, he stood in Twain's kitchen, slicing continuously. Eitan piled the sliced meat on rye and plated this towering sandwich with potato salad, cole slaw and two pickle spears.

A waiter brought the sandwich to Jennifer Jenkins, originally from Long Island.

"Oh my God! It melts in your mouth," exclaimed Jenkins, a theater director at Georgia Perimeter College. "You know, I moved here in 1971. I've spent more than two-thirds of my life in Atlanta, but my core is New York. And right now I'm back! I'm at the Second Avenue Deli or Katz's, and the potato salad and the pickle, and, and this," she said lofting a sandwich half, "is like butta."

Alan Yorker, a Decatur therapist, echoed the sentiment. "I moved here from New York 32 years ago, and I've waited 32 years for this corned beef. This is a lot cheaper than flying to New York twice a year. This is mountain coming to Mohammed, um, as it were."

There were a couple of grumbles. Minor grumbles, but we're talking New Yorkers. April Choi, a Manhattan native now living in Atlanta, thought the bread wasn't exactly right. Wurtzel admitted this rye is the closest he can find locally to real deli rye.

Back in the kitchen, Wurtzel continued slicing, snacking more than occasionally on odd pieces from the fat end of the brisket where the meat is nearly gelatinous in texture. "This is my favorite part," he said with a sigh.

All the tiny shreds of beef went into a bucket, which he brought back for Daisy, his Bluetick Coonhound.

"She just loves it," Wurtzel said proudly, "and she's not even a New York dog."

IF YOU GO

Ä The New York Corned Beef Society of Atlanta's next meeting is at 4 p.m. Sunday, at Twain's Billiards & Tap, 211 E. Trinity Place, Decatur, 404-373-0063. There are no hazing rituals for newcomers or membership fees, but the sandwich plates cost $8.50. Information: www.nycbsa.com.

Photo

New York native Howard Wurtzel carves personally prepared corned beef, to be plated with traditional deli accompaniments. / LOUIE FAVORITE / Staff