As has been said, herring in anything is good. It is mass produced but even those are enough to get you hooked. I love any pickled meat and with the onions it just makes it like stinky heaven. I came from a family of canners so I would give anything to try a home pickled one (Portland help me out) but then herringin sour cream. It takes it farther as you have the sour sweet creamy goodness, and that is just the commercial stuff. I like to open the jar and spoon some juices and replace them with a bit more vinegar but I do that with anything pickled or such.
I like your idea of “not far.” It’s over 400 frikkin’ miles!
That said, lots of places ship, but this kind of thing is the exact bit that’s hard to ship. A half pound of lox, a pound of whitefish, a couple nice bagels… it’s the kind of thing that you want to pop down to the corner deli to pick up, not plan ahead, pay gratuitous shipping charges, and end up throwing away the leftovers a week later because you had to get 3 pounds of lox and a dozen bagels because it doesn’t make sense to ship less than that.
I am lucky enough to be a subway ride away from Russ & Daughters.
Whitefish salad and chopped liver were always served in my house with Ritz crackers to spread it on. Herring was eaten, as mentioned above, with a fork (straight from the container if one was alone), and other smoked fish on brown bread with some butter (also as stated above). Lox was always on a bagel smeared with cream cheese, and topped with sliced red onion.
The drink of choice for us was some variety of Dr. Brown’s soda… I didn’t like the cel-ray, but their cream soda is awesome.
I have to disagree. Sable and smoked whitefish are quite yummy on a bagel or bialy with cream cheese, especially with sliced tomato and onion.
Good sable is hard to beat. For picking out a smoked whitefish, my grandfather taught me well; look for one with a small head with a large “hump” behind it, like the two pictured here.
If you don’t have good (read: real) bagels, everything will be ruined. They aren’t supposed to be fluffy (like at Noah’s Bagels and other bagel chains that make something that looks like a bagel but is not), they’re supposed to be dense. Not hard, though. You shouldn’t have to toast them (unless you freeze them for economic reasons or something). You buy them fresh and eat them the same day. I like Murray’s Bagels but many of my fellow Jewish NYers disagree.
This is where you get good appetizing if you have a lot of money. The first time I had a big paycheck I bought four bags of food there and took a cab home so I didn’t have to lug the bags and it was the best way to spend the money.
That said, Fairway has objectively better whitefish salad.
Whitefish salad and other smoked fish salads go on bagels or bialys or crackers. They’re really good on a slightly sweet whole wheat cracker. You can also eat the salad on its own with a fork.
Everyone in my family loves mayonnaise but not everyone loves smoked fish. I love it only when it’s mixed with mayonnaise. I do like very high quality smoked salmon on its own but cream cheese makes everything better.
Smoked salmon goes on a bagel with cream cheese, red onions, and capers. If you get really high quality ingredients this can be a pretty luxe meal even though it’s simple and requires no cooking.
I really can’t stand pickled fish but my dad loves it. It makes me feel ill to even think about it.
Other things to have are egg salad and anything else with mayo in it but no meat, knish (with brown mustard), cheese blintz (with applesauce and sour cream)…
I wasn’t raised in a kosher household. My dad eats pork and everyone else eats bacon.
