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After a short stint back home in Brooklyn, the Koenig-Fruchter family’s August travel madness continues apace!
Today we are packing up the car (again) and heading out (again) for our last hurrah before the school year begins. This time, our destination is Klez Kanada—a week-long klezmer music and Yiddish/Jewish culture festival north of Montreal. Yoshie will be teaching two music ensembles, and I will be leading a series of cooking classes on Roman Jewish food and history. Max and Bea, meanwhile, will join the kids’ program described in the program book as an “exuberant, Yiddish-infused art and nature” extravaganza. (Um, can I join?!)
This is my seventh time attending or teaching at Klez Kanada, and our second time going as a family of four. It’s a schlep to get there and a lot of work, but also abundant with joy—a week of catching up with friends, Jewish folk songs spilling out of every window, sun-warmed days and sweater weather nights, enthusiastic conversations about Jewish culture, lazy afternoon lake swims, stars twinkling above the Laurentian mountains, and late-night klezmer dance parties.
One additional highlight of going to a festival just north of Montreal is getting to pass through Montreal—the best European city not located in Europe. We always stop in Mile End, Montreal’s historic Jewish neighborhood, for slushy frappés at Cafe Club Social (not a Jewish spot, but wonderful), gooey chocolate babka from Boulangerie Cheskie and just-baked bagels from St-Viateur.
And if we have time, we have a sit-down brunch at Beauty’s—the 82-year old Jewish luncheonette that is an icon of Montreal’s dining scene. Here’s a photo of Yoshie and Max (aged 4, devouring pancakes with Canadian maple syrup, naturally) at Beauty’s, en route to Klez Kanada back in 2018.
Montreal’s Unique Jewish Cuisine
Like New York City, Jewish food (and the Jewish immigrant experience more broadly) is a central part of Montreal’s historical fabric. And like New York City, Montreal’s Jewish cuisine is primarily Ashkenazi (the city is also home to a sizable Moroccan Jewish population)—but diverges in several important ways.
Instead of pastrami, for example, Montrealers enjoy smoked meat sandwiches. (The related-but-distinct delicacies are both descendants of the Romanian smoked meat, pastramă.) And in Montreal you are as likely to find the garlicky dried sausage, karnatzel, as beef salami on Jewish restaurant menus.
Instead of New York’s sweet cheese Danishes, Montreal is home to “cheese bagels” (also called bagelach)—horseshoe-shaped puff pastries filled with sweetened farmer’s cheese. And if you have ever dipped a toe into the NY vs. MTL bagel debate, you know that Montrealers are fiercely loyal to their city’s bagels. In short, Montreal bagels are sweeter, smaller, and more densely-crumbed than NY bagels, and are also baked in wood-fired ovens.
Beauty’s, which was founded in Mile End in 1942 by Russian-Jewish immigrants Hymie and Freda Sckolnick, contributed the Mish-Mash—a signature omelette stuffed with hot dog, salami, green peppers, and fried onions—to Montreal’s Jewish dining culture. Tucked into one of the cozy retro booths, you can also order Montreal bagels with Nova lox and schmear, cheese blintzes, challah French toast, and the Mont-Royal salad plate, which arranges mounds of egg salad, chicken salad, and tuna salad atop lettuce to resemble the city’s famous peak.
Like many brunch-y restaurants, Beauty’s also offers a stellar tuna melt. But today’s newsletter recipe is inspired by a lesser-known (but equally worthy) “melt,” on Beauty’s menu: the veggie melt. A mix of griddled bell peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini gets pressed with cheddar cheese between Russian black bread until it’s golden and melty. Eating it is sloppy, colorful fun—and delicious too.
My Late Summer Veggie Melt—a riff on Beauty’s—adds roasted red onion for some allium goodness and fresh tomato slices for extra fresh, summery flavor.
Right now, at this very moment, you can get nearly everything you need to make this Late Summer Veggie Melt at my local farmer’s market—and probably your farmer’s market too. Yes, even the bread and cheese (though not the olive oil or mustard). As my family kick’s off our trip to Klez Kanada via Montreal today, celebrate summer’s bounty, Montreal’s unique Jewish culture, and Beauty’s gifts to Jewish cuisine by indulging in this crispy, juicy, veggie-packed ode to August.
Late Summer Veggie Melt
A summery, vegetarian riff on a tuna melt, inspired by the menu at Beauty’s in Montreal. Make it vegan by swapping in vegan butter when frying the sandwich and leaving the cheese off entirely—it’s still plenty delicious that way.
Makes 2 sandwiches
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