THANK YOU FOR BARFING!

All of New York is in mourning, with the passing of a beloved Lower East Side institution, The Second Avenue Deli, where Tevye proposed marriage to Yentl of Fiddler on the Roof, and Marc Chagall’s cow, bloated by intestinal gas, flew over the moon.

With its demise, New York has one less kosher meatball of a greasy spoon, where generations of young people got their first experience of ptomaine food poisoning and Mayor Koch lost his hair from eating a week-old portion of stuffed derma.

The funeral procession is scheduled to proceed down Second Avenue to St. Marks Place and then over to Tompkins Square Park, where the restaurant will be formally interred under the dog run, right by the band shell where singer Tuli Kupferberg of the legendary Fugs intoned the immortal tribute to its gastronomic excellence when he sang:

If it smells like grease I eat it
Kreplach don’t defeat it
Herring just can’t beat it

The color commentators for today’s parade are Smuckley Dickhead, food critic for The New York Post and Elmer Pato, founder and CEO of Barf and Puke Bagels, another icon of New York cultural distinction.

Let’s start with you, Elmer: what are your reminiscences of The Second Avenue Deli?

“When I first started out in the South Bronx, The Second Avenue Deli was like the Yankees. It was always my dream to get my bagels in there, but when Sam Plotz, the manager, first tried one of my bagels, he said that the bouquet wasn’t distinctive enough.

“I tried various formulas to try to recreate an old-world flavor until I finally succeeded by throwing my socks into the kettle where we boil the bagels. It gave off a smell like beef bouillon, and when Sam again tasted it he shouted out:

‘By George, I think he’s got it
The stomach pain
Is driving me insane’

“Second Avenue Deli went on to be my biggest customer.”

Well, that certainly was a heart-burning tribute! What about you, Smuckley?

“When I first arrived in New York I went through tough times like most young people. So, sometimes, when I was short of cash, I used to rummage through the dumpster at the back of the building, where the food was exactly the same as what they were serving in the front, including the flies.

“Even today, now that I’ve hit the big-time, eating for free at Cipriani and Le Cirque, I still sometimes direct my limo driver to come downtown so I can rummage through the dumpster. Second Avenue Deli, thanks for the memories!”

Sorry to interrupt you, Schmuckley, but the funeral procession is starting to wend its way down the Avenue as the massive crowd of wailing mourners throw themselves onto the coffin. They’re screaming, “Take me instead!” and “I’ll never eat another knish!”

Now the procession s passing in front of Christine’s, the world-famous Polish eatery, where mourners are throwing handfuls of sauerkraut. Quite a moving tribute!

Now the honor guard is passing. The Hebrew Hospital Home has sent its crack precision marching team of grandmothers, who push their walkers in synchronized coordination like an Esther Williams musical, stopping every few steps to kick like the Rockettes. Not as high as the Rockettes, mind you, but high enough to show off their bloomers and elastic knee-highs like the Moulin Rouge of Paris France.

Right behind them is a platoon of food inspectors writing violations and throwing out handfuls of roaches and mouse droppings while their harmonica band plays a mournful arrangement of “Amazing Grease,” accompanied by world-famous tenor Luciano Bologna:

Amazing Grease abide by me
I think that I shall never see
A steaming plate of pas-tra-mi!!!

And now, the last float in the procession, Mayor Bloomberg astride a flatbed truck, draped in the robes of the Statue of Liberty, holding a menu in his left hand and in his right, as a beckoning symbol of freedom to the entire world, a Hebrew National garlic salami.

Only in New York, kids!

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Posted on 7/30/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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