A food autobiography--Part one

My first entry concerns the lowly knish. At the local delis when I was growing up, you did see the proletarian square potato knish that was also sold from hot-dog carts, but you also had meat knishes and kasha knishes. And once you had one of those, you knew that you were through with the square potato knish forever. Later, in the 1970s and ‘80s, you began to see a great variety of knishes in the city – cheese knishes, pineapple cheese knishes, cherry cheese knishes, spinach knishes, sweet potato knishes – and I loved them all. Many of these originated with the famous Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes in Brighton Beach but could also be found elsewhere – even at a “Coney Island Knishes” eatery in Penn Station. Well, food fads come and go, and today it’s once again hard to find knishes except for the square kind, although I recently found a spinach knish and a kasha knish at Murray’s Bagels on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. Hopefully, knishes, in all their glory and variety, will become popular again someday!