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It’s a classic Abe story — there are so many classic Abe stories — set at one of those panel discussions that crop up periodically about the death of delis, which seem to have been dying as long as the theater. Abe is Abe Lebewohl, who started the Second Avenue Deli on the Lower East Side in 1954 with 14 seats, bought out his partners and turned it into a beloved New York institution.
He was at that conference of food writers, in the mid-1990s, along with Mark Federman, the owner of Russ & Daughters, which is to “appetizing” what Second Avenue was to deli. Appetizing refers to smoked fish — lox, herring, whitefish — and even though it’s not corned beef or pastrami, it’s still Old World Jewish food loaded with salt, so he fit right in. Federman went first, speaking from copious notes, about how fish is good for you. When it was Lebewohl’s turn, he got up, noteless, and looked at the audience. “What am I gonna tell you?” he said. “My food will kill you.”