It is difficult to explain to nonbelievers why so many worship at the food temple called Zabar’s. True, the store has a great backstory: a young immigrant grocer named Louis Zabar developed a painful rash handling fruit and vegetable skins, an affliction relieved only by sticking his hands and arms into a barrel of pickled herring and its soothing brine. Thus, the need to branch out into less allergic products combined with an attractive lease in a building on New York’s Upper West Side led Louis and his wife, Lilly, to open Zabar’s in 1934.
The Zabars had three sons, Saul, Eli, and Stanley, all three still alive and two of them still running the business. (Eli started his own food empire on the East Side of Manhattan and, contrary to myth, remains close to his brothers.) Lori Zabar, one of Stanley’s three children, has written a loving and yet surprisingly candid history of the store and the family, complete with recipes for store favorites such as Lilly Zabar’s sweet noodle kugel, flanken soup, and, of course, chopped liver.
