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Authors: Mark Kurlansky
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with money and success. "It's funny," he said. "You become somebody and that's it. Es far-tik. It's done." After "The Yiddish Boogaloo," he knew that he would always be Chow Mein Vega, even though he suspected that he was trapped in a half-truth.
Most boogalooistas had a defining boogaloo, such as Ricardo Ray's "Danzon Boogaloo" or Pete Rodriguez's "Pete's Boogaloo." It was New York music. The idea for "The Yiddish Boogaloo" came from the neighborhood. Joe Cuba's 1967 "Bang Bang" described the cultural tension between blacks and Latinos in Harlem, between cornbread and lechón. But "The Yiddish Boogaloo" was about a different neighborhood:
Eh! Yiddisha hugaloo
Meshugaloo—ahhh!
Meshugabo — ahh!
Second Avenue—ahhhh!
Go to the deli,
And you will find,
Corned beef, pasteles,
And pastrami on rye.
And for dessert —moiongo pie!
And as you leave
They'll give you
A kishka good-bye.
Thousands of people would raise their arms and shout in a slow crescendo, "Meshugaloo—ahhhh!" It became a spontaneous cry whenever Chow Mein Vega and his six-piece band appeared on a stage—in New York; San Juan; Sao Paulo; Paris; Juneau, Alaska; Tel Aviv; Tokyo— "Meshugaloo—ahhhh!"
For a moment, it transformed the neighborhood. It was the late sixties, and the yippies had moved in, buying their smoke on Tenth Street. Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue were being turned into rock concert halls. But after Chow Mein Vega's "Yiddish Boogaloo," hundreds came downtown to eat at Saul Grossman's Deli. He even added pasteles to the menu. Chow Mein's mother came down to show his cooks—most of whom were uptown blacks—how to make her pasteles, while Rabbi Chaim Litvakfrom the little synagogue on Sixth Street observed, making certain that these pasteles were in accordance with the book of Deuteronomy, certifiably kosher pasteles. Rabbi Litvak worked with Mrs. Rodriguez on a recipe with ground beef instead of pork, mixed with a hamless tomato sofrito, which is a sautéed sauce base. Problems came with the masa, the grated green banana dough, on the outside. Mrs. Rodriguez almost gave up when Rabbi Litvak told her she could not add cream to the masa because the filling had meat. She had always regarded the cream as the hidden touch that made her pasteles special and had even hesitated to reveal her secret. She did not care that her snobbish neighbor from the island always claimed that the cream was "a completely Nuyorican thing." There is a great difference of opinion on whether Nuyorican is a pejorative adjective. It depended on the speaker. Sal First could make "Spanish" sound pejorative.
With great reluctance, Mrs. Rodriguez backed off from her Nuyorican cream recipe. Still, it took considerable research to find a supplier who was able to assure that their banana leaves, the outer wrapper of pasteles, were acceptable to rabbinic standards.
Saul liked the pasteles and tried to get the team of Rodriguez and Litvak working on a mofongo pie, Saul not realizing that mofongo was never served in a pie. But Mrs. Rodriguez was not difficult. She accepted the idea of putting mofongo in a piecrust. But what to her was not negotiable was mashing the green bananas in pork fat. Everyone knows that it is pork fat that makes mofongo good. They tried numerous alternative fats, but they could never find one that both Mrs. Rodriguez and Rabbi Litvak could approve. Rabbi Litvak thought mashed plantains in garlic and soy oil—"a good pareve oil," he argued—was a great dish. "You could even boil them like dumplings and put them in soup," he suggested. Plátano knadlech.
No, Mrs. Rodriguez shook her head insistently, raising her arm and waving her outstretched fingers. "This mofongo tastes of nada. Na-da!"
Rabbi Litvak, a connoisseur of didactic hand movements, admired the gesture. A stubborn man, he profited from the entire encounter. Though Saul Grossman could not find an acceptable mofongo for mofongo pie, Litvak started using mashed green bananas, garlic, and
Most boogalooistas had a defining boogaloo, such as Ricardo Ray's "Danzon Boogaloo" or Pete Rodriguez's "Pete's Boogaloo." It was New York music. The idea for "The Yiddish Boogaloo" came from the neighborhood. Joe Cuba's 1967 "Bang Bang" described the cultural tension between blacks and Latinos in Harlem, between cornbread and lechón. But "The Yiddish Boogaloo" was about a different neighborhood:
Eh! Yiddisha hugaloo
Meshugaloo—ahhh!
Meshugabo — ahh!
Second Avenue—ahhhh!
Go to the deli,
And you will find,
Corned beef, pasteles,
And pastrami on rye.
And for dessert —moiongo pie!
And as you leave
They'll give you
A kishka good-bye.
Thousands of people would raise their arms and shout in a slow crescendo, "Meshugaloo—ahhhh!" It became a spontaneous cry whenever Chow Mein Vega and his six-piece band appeared on a stage—in New York; San Juan; Sao Paulo; Paris; Juneau, Alaska; Tel Aviv; Tokyo— "Meshugaloo—ahhhh!"
For a moment, it transformed the neighborhood. It was the late sixties, and the yippies had moved in, buying their smoke on Tenth Street. Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue were being turned into rock concert halls. But after Chow Mein Vega's "Yiddish Boogaloo," hundreds came downtown to eat at Saul Grossman's Deli. He even added pasteles to the menu. Chow Mein's mother came down to show his cooks—most of whom were uptown blacks—how to make her pasteles, while Rabbi Chaim Litvakfrom the little synagogue on Sixth Street observed, making certain that these pasteles were in accordance with the book of Deuteronomy, certifiably kosher pasteles. Rabbi Litvak worked with Mrs. Rodriguez on a recipe with ground beef instead of pork, mixed with a hamless tomato sofrito, which is a sautéed sauce base. Problems came with the masa, the grated green banana dough, on the outside. Mrs. Rodriguez almost gave up when Rabbi Litvak told her she could not add cream to the masa because the filling had meat. She had always regarded the cream as the hidden touch that made her pasteles special and had even hesitated to reveal her secret. She did not care that her snobbish neighbor from the island always claimed that the cream was "a completely Nuyorican thing." There is a great difference of opinion on whether Nuyorican is a pejorative adjective. It depended on the speaker. Sal First could make "Spanish" sound pejorative.
With great reluctance, Mrs. Rodriguez backed off from her Nuyorican cream recipe. Still, it took considerable research to find a supplier who was able to assure that their banana leaves, the outer wrapper of pasteles, were acceptable to rabbinic standards.
Saul liked the pasteles and tried to get the team of Rodriguez and Litvak working on a mofongo pie, Saul not realizing that mofongo was never served in a pie. But Mrs. Rodriguez was not difficult. She accepted the idea of putting mofongo in a piecrust. But what to her was not negotiable was mashing the green bananas in pork fat. Everyone knows that it is pork fat that makes mofongo good. They tried numerous alternative fats, but they could never find one that both Mrs. Rodriguez and Rabbi Litvak could approve. Rabbi Litvak thought mashed plantains in garlic and soy oil—"a good pareve oil," he argued—was a great dish. "You could even boil them like dumplings and put them in soup," he suggested. Plátano knadlech.
No, Mrs. Rodriguez shook her head insistently, raising her arm and waving her outstretched fingers. "This mofongo tastes of nada. Na-da!"
Rabbi Litvak, a connoisseur of didactic hand movements, admired the gesture. A stubborn man, he profited from the entire encounter. Though Saul Grossman could not find an acceptable mofongo for mofongo pie, Litvak started using mashed green bananas, garlic, and
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