As a journalist and lifelong deli lover, Sax watched in dismay as one beloved Jewish deli after another closed its doors, only to be reopened as some bland chain restaurant laying claim to the cuisine it just paved over. Was it still possible to save the deli?

Sax writes about the food itself—how it’s made, who makes it best, and where to go for particular dishes—and, ultimately, what he finds is hope: deli newly and lovingly made in places like Boulder, Colorado, longstanding deli traditions thriving in Montreal, and the resurrection of iconic institutions like New York's 2nd Avenue Deli. No cultural history of food has ever tasted so good. 

A Los Angeles Times Bestseller

#1 in Meats on Amazon

Winner of the James Beard Award for writing and literature

Winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award, and the Canadian Culinary Award

A Globe and Mail and best book of 2009

Book launch with more than 400 people at Ben’s Kosher Deli in NYC setting world records, eating hundreds of pounds of meats, and featuring Jelvis (The Jewish Elvis), and Borscht Belt Legend Freddie Roman.

Optioned for a sitcom by NBC

“Sax is actually operating in a grand tradition of Jewish reporting: that of Benjamin Tudela, the 12th century Jewish traveler wandering the Earth, observing and recording the state of Hebrews everywhere. Sax wants to know where they are, how it is, and what they're serving, food long having been a kind of barometer on Jewish well-being. In the early days of the Second World War, for example, when Polish Jews wanted to tell their American cousins how they were faring under the Nazis, they wrote, "We eat as on Yom Kippur.”

— Rich Cohen