The battle for smoked meat supremacy in Toronto is heating up! Join The Stop for a fundraiser that will have chefs from Caplansky’s, Goldin’s and The Stockyards go head-to-head in a battle to produce the best smoked meat sandwich. Go, taste and vote for your favourite.

Admission is free. Food and drink available for purchase. All sandwiches $3; lemonade and iced tea $3; beer $5. All proceeds go to The Stop.

The Stop Community Food Centre strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds community and challenges inequality. They believe that healthy food is a basic human right and recognize that the ability to access healthy food is often related to multiple issues and not just a result of low income. Learn more.

As I’ve said here before, The Stop is close to my heart. I’ve been fortunate to not use their services, but I live one block from Wychwood Barns and community is important to me. I appreciate the work that The Stop does and support them when I can.

Because this is a duel, I want to see swords and chain mail. Maybe a cod-piece? (Er, maybe not – unless “cod piece” means “piece of cod”, and this isn’t a fish ‘n’chips duel.)

See related post at the Save the Deli blog.

When I posted this I referred to Zane as “Zane ‘Caplansky’ Caplan”. This is incorrect, as he changed his name two years ago. A little bit of communication technology fail followed (I rarely check my blog-related Twitter account for replies and direct messages, usually direct messages are forwarded to my inbox) and then he blogged that he was bugged by it, thinking that I’d chosen not to fix it on purpose. Now the Jewish guilt has set in and I feel bad even though I didn’t knowingly do anything wrong. Apologies to Zane. Next time I call him by the wrong name I’ll call him “Ted” or something, just because. I think I owe him a beverage of his choice. Caplansky, you’ve got yichus.

A little impromptu (for me) Twitter gathering at Caplansky’s yesterday evening brought over 20 people onto the patio on College Street. The story I was told of how the outing came to be goes like this: Joel tweeted a photo of kishka which prompted Jo’s curiosity and this turned into a group outing. I’d link to the original tweet or Twitpic but can find neither. (Joel? Jo?)  Here’s Joel’s “short version”.

Zane Caplansky himself schooled the non-Jews on knishes and kishka, provided a little yiddish lesson (e.g. “forspeis”: appetizer) and provided back story for some of his menu items. Putting a new spin on old comfort food favourites, his knish isn’t like the stuffed dumpling that I’m used to, the type that I’ve eaten my entire life and sold when I worked in a bagel bakery in Thornhill, where knishes came from Montreal (Solly’s, I think). The ones I’ve encountered were round, like in Wikipedia’s photo, or square. See Google Images for an example of the various shapes and sizes.

Zane does things his way and his knish is more a strudel-looking puff pastry filled with mashed potato and spices, sitting on a puddle of brisket gravy made with the lean bits of brisket.

I refer to “kishka” as “Jewish haggis”. Same concept, really. As website Jewish Recipes says, “Kishka is a Slavic word meaning gut, or intestine, that lends its name to varieties of sausage or pudding.” Originally it was beef intestine stuffed with matzo meal, rendered fat (schmaltz) and spices but nowadays the casing tends to be synthetic. I don’t know what kind of casing Caplansky’s uses but I hope it was meant to be eaten.  It had been years since I’ve consumed kishka. I don’t know if I like it for the nostalgia or if I like it because it really does taste good. I wonder what he’ll do when he makes gribenes.

On the topic of old favourites, I hadn’t had pickled tongue since my last visit and prior to that it had been years. I loved that stuff when I was a kid and approached the taste buds with the glee of a child who simultaneously likes something and is grossed out by it. It’s stinky to make at home so I don’t recommend it.

This was intended to be a post of photos with few words (being succinct is a challenge and one of the reasons I don’t blog more frequently), so here they are. I was sitting with my back to Zane so didn’t get any photos of him, but Joel did. There are four on his Twitpic page, and as of this typing they start the second photo down, though they’ll get pushed down by other photos.

(Sadly, full photo descriptions don’t show up anywhere. I used witty ones, too.)

Zane also gave me a tour of the articles on his wall, which I didn’t take a photo of. I’d noticed them during a previous visit but never examined them. He’s quite proud of his accomplishment and it seems that he’s learned a lot about the business and about marketing along the way. I expected more ego. Maybe the next time I see him we’ll play some Jewish Geography. I know that we know people in common because I’ve read their names in his blog.

If you’re interested in following more photos and impressions, scroll through the Twitter conversation hashtagged “#DeliTweetup“.

Eat well (in this case tasty), be well.