{"id":282326,"date":"2025-11-10T01:22:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T01:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/282326\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T01:22:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T01:22:21","slug":"what-a-kosher-hailey-bieber-smoothie-tells-us-about-jewish-taste-the-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/282326\/","title":{"rendered":"What a kosher Hailey Bieber smoothie tells us about Jewish taste \u2013 The Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Nooish's<\/p>\n

Nooish\u2019s kosher instant matzo ball soup is\u2026actually really good. Photo by Louis Keene<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Louis<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Louis Keene<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNovember 7, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It has become exceedingly difficult to get a bowl of kosher matzo ball soup in my L.A. neighborhood. I\u2019m reminded of this every few months, when a cold or a craving reminds me what we lost when Pico Kosher Deli, established in 1968 about a mile from my apartment,\u00a0closed<\/a>\u00a0for good early in the pandemic. It\u2019s not just the soup, of course. It\u2019s the whole kosher deli experience \u2014 bulging pastrami sandwiches, a waitress with a notepad,\u00a0frilly toothpicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The traditional kosher deli is dying, if not dead, and not just in L.A. Kosher Ashkenazi fare is officially pass\u00e9, a cuisine category today\u2019s balabustas \u2014 at least my millennial Modern Orthodox cohort \u2014 have abandoned. At the kosher markets, Manischewitz products are relegated to a dusty corner, the \u201ckosher aisle\u201d of the kosher grocer. And at surviving delis like Katz\u2019s and Canter\u2019s, kosher is not a religious certification. It is, simply, a nostalgia cue immediately preceding the word \u201cstyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, a wave of new, smartly packaged foodstuffs capitalizing on that nostalgia has arrived to restore my Ashkenazi birthright, or at least my former sodium levels. In the years since my neighborhood deli closed, direct-to-consumer brands have launched to hawk\u00a0kosher potato latke crisps<\/a>,\u00a0kosher matzo chips<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0kosher jarred charoset (lovingly named Schmutz<\/a>). The newcomer that I sprung for was a kosher instant matzo ball soup called\u00a0Nooish<\/a>. A box of four stout, colorful soup cups arrived about a week after I ordered them online.<\/p>\n

\"Free<\/p>\n

To find out why these shelf-stable products have taken off while delis languish, I called Nate Rosen, whose official title \u2014 creator of the consumer brands newsletter Express Checkout<\/a> \u2014 obscures the coolness of his job, which largely consists of reviewing new snacks on TikTok<\/a>. According to Rosen, the kosher renaissance was part of a broader surge of food startups during the pandemic, when free time and disposable income were suddenly in abundance. It was inevitable someone would find the Jewish angle on the trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a market for it,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cThere\u2019s dedicated spots for it [on shelves]. And I think especially now, people are proud to be Jewish and proud to show that off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nooish\u2019s instant soup, ready in just a couple minutes, doesn\u2019t come with booth seating. But taste-wise, comfort-wise and deli-wise<\/a>, it\u2019s a worthy adaptation of the experience. The kneidlach \u2014 three to a cup, each a bit larger than a Ping-Pong ball and floating in a salty brown broth, hold their form but obey your spoon. (There\u2019s no chicken, and the soup is certified pareve.) At four-for-$36, the instant soup is probably too pricey for your kid\u2019s lunchbox, and not substantial enough for an adult meal. But in a pinch \u2014 say, a cold or a craving \u2014 it can be transporting.<\/p>\n

\"HaileyI\u2019m just here for the sea moss gel. Photo by Louis Keene<\/p>\n

If the kosher deli is out, what\u2019s in? The answer awaited me at Hatch Kitchen, a new kosher meat restaurant, where earlier this week I watched a barista prepare a fancy smoothie. Elaborate, astonishingly expensive and often named after celebrities, fancy smoothies are an L.A. institution, the lifeblood of the influencer class. The most notorious of these drinks, the upscale grocery chain Erewhon\u2019s Hailey Bieber smoothie, contains strawberries and dates but also vanilla collagen powder and something called sea moss gel. It costs $20.<\/p>\n

Hatch, I was told, makes something similar, the strawberry-based \u201cOr-gan-ic\u201d (the middle syllable also the Hebrew word for garden), which the restaurant calls its \u201cmost viral smoothie.\u201d No sea moss gel, but the menu touts \u201canti-inflammatory\u201d ingredients that include flax seeds and hibiscus. It\u2019s $12, which sounds like a lot if you\u2019ve never spent $20 on a smoothie before, and like a bargain if you just did, and for that one you\u2019d had to look a cashier in the eye and utter the name of Justin Bieber\u2019s wife. (At Hatch, you order from an iPad.)<\/p>\n

Hatch\u2019s fancy smoothie \u2014 which is also a photogenic one \u2014 models the dominant trend in contemporary kosher dining: pop-culture mimicry. Across from where the Pico Kosher Deli once stood, you can order a kosher crunchwrap supreme \u2014 a Taco Bell menu item \u2014 from a Mexican street food place called Lenny\u2019s Casita. Kosher cafes still serve bagels, but people go for the avocado toast. It\u2019s kosher dining\u2019s hypebeast era, if you can afford it; Lenny\u2019s crunchwrap with beef runs $30. I\u2019m not sure how close the knockoff is to the real thing, or whether proximity really matters. Most customers will never taste the alternative.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a tension inherent in these appropriated menu items \u2014 affirming both the desirability of secular culture and the Jewish laws forbidding it. Cultural diffusion and communal retreat. Assimilation and resistance. Meanwhile, the ancestral cuisine, which emerged out of kosher dietary laws, has been simultaneously rejected and idealized. You can\u2019t find too many kosher delis, but TikTok has popularized\u00a0pickle fountains<\/a>. (Wait until they find out about hamantaschen.)<\/p>\n

I was sort of sad about this state of affairs until I spoke to David Sax, who was dismayed enough about the decline of delis to\u00a0write a book about it<\/a>. He explained that Jewish deli food developed as a way of transforming European deli methods and flavors, which were more often made with pork, into kosher adaptations. The corned beef sandwich was the original fancy smoothie, which means our kosher crunchwrap might become tomorrow\u2019s matzo ball soup. The comfort food changes, but the people endure.<\/p>\n

Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York magazine and Vice. He is based in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the\u00a0Forward. Discover more perspectives in\u00a0Opinion<\/a>. To contact Opinion authors, email\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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