The Zeitgeist

           

Mexican Coke (left), U.S. bottled 6-pack and a fatty Hot Pastrami Sandwich.

Gourmet Imported Coke and When Pastrami was Pastrami

One of the things about working in publishing or the media are the long and sometimes odd hours, it’s not exactly a 9-5 job. Thanks to my Blackberry (being sarcastic here) it can sometimes seem like a 24/7 job. Journalists are known to be big consumers of caffeinated products. We have two coffee machines here in our office that get a lot of use. I’m not a coffee guy (never cared for the taste) and generally shy away from caffeine in general but sometimes you just need a jolt to get over the hump at some strange hour of the day or night.

My stimulant of choice on those rare occasions when I will indulge is classic Coca-Cola. But, I’m very particular on what kinds of Coke as would befit someone who spent 18 years in the wine business. For me, Coke is best in thick glass bottles. Somehow, plastic bottles or cans diminish Coke’s taste. Cans make it tinny and plastic makes it flatter to my palate. Obtaining Coke in thick glass bottles isn’t as easy as it was back in the day as glass costs more to make, more to fill, more to pack and most significantly in these times of high energy costs, more to ship.

In light of that you probably won’t be surprised to learn that Coke in thick glass carries a premium price just about anywhere. Here in The Five Towns, Key Food in Woodmere generally carries six packs of the little glass bottles, the kind that were so ubiquitous decades ago. These don’t come cheap and I tend to sip them sparingly like some rare vintage Burgundy or Bordeaux. Lately there is an alternate source of glassed-in Coke – at many area convenience stores (such as the 24-hour shop down the block from our offices on Broadway in Woodmere) one can now find 12-ounce tall bottles of Coke smuggled in (I mean “imported”) from Mexico. These bottles are the Holy Grail of Coke as the Mexicans use real cane sugar (the original, original recipe) instead of the hated high-fructose corn syrup which has helped turn America into a nation of obese burghers. These bottles absolutely look and taste the way Coke did in 1968. They also are priced like fine vintage wine at $2 a bottle. Compared with the cost of a latte at Starbucks, I suppose that’s something of a bargain however. I remember buying these bottles from vending machines for a quarter, but then I also remember candy bars for a nickel, (yes, they were that price in the mid to late 60s) Good Humor ice cream for a dime, pizza for 25 cents, the Atlantic Beach Bridge toll for 10 cents and the subway for 35 cents (late 70s).

My ultimate Coke experience is even harder to come by these days and that’s at a genuine soda fountain where they mix Coke syrup with seltzer and even better, will make you a real cherry Coke with Coke and cherry syrup. There just is something so intrinsically American about a juicy burger with lettuce, tomato and onion with a fountain Coke that foreigners will never fathom. These days in an effort to keep trim, I rarely consume any kinds of soda, let alone Coke. But when I’m having a Coke, I want a Coke, not some diet thing with chemicals that purports to be a Coke. Way back in the day I used to like Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray when it was also made with real sugar and only came in big glass bottles that could only, tantalizingly, be obtained at kosher delis and never at supermarkets. Today, the plasticized corn syrup version is a pale imitation of its original self (ditto with the cream soda) along with the quality of much kosher deli in general.

There was a time when men were men, women were women and pastrami, corned beef and brisket came piping hot out of steam trays and were so moist and tender from the steaming that it would melt in your mouth. The meat had fat in it (no one asked for lean pastrami – please!) and the rye bread had real onions, garlic and/or seeds permeated and infused throughout the bread, not just as some decorative ornaments on the exterior crust. Chopped liver was made with chicken fat and pickles, peppers and sauerkraut were so pungent you would wince from taking a bite. And the people who ate this stuff all the time (not just once and a while as we do these days) somehow managed to live well into their 80s (or so it seemed) and beyond without working out, aerobics, spinning classes or marathon running. (Granted, they didn’t look too good though…).

One reason for this diminution in the quality of much deli is because the old timers who but their body and soul into smoking and curing their own corned beef and pastrami were just as smart and talented and driven as their progeny who now are some of the nation’s top financiers, attorneys, real estate moguls and movie producers. But they never had the educational opportunities our generation did, do they did deli.

Homogenized standardization and mass-market production is the rule of the day, but still, once and a while with a “contraband” Mexican bottle of Coke imported from Monterrey one can kick back and feel that all is still right with the world, that we’re heading off to a barbeque or for deli in my late grandfather’s block-long white Cadillac Sedan DeVille, that $5 was a lot of money and that no one can reach me across six platforms of media at all hours because Blackberrys and i-Phones hadn’t been invented yet.