KUGEL AT THE MEAT-AND-THREE

Have you ever eaten at a “meat-and-three”?

Chances are not, unless you have visited my hometown in rural America. There are at least 25 meat-and-three restaurants within a 16-kilometer radius from where I live. The common denominator among them is that they all serve the simplest food in the simplest manner: one plain main course chosen from the likes of meat loaf, chicken, fried fish, and three side dishes selected from among pickled beets, peas, beans, squash, bread pudding, and the other foodstuffs you would expect a yokel to eat.

I have had occasion to dine (fish, not ham) at a local meat-and-three and have always enjoyed it. Ironically, I have recently been ordained as a local meat-and-three expert under the pseudonym, “Rabbi Ribeye,” because of my newspaper column and forthcoming television show. The premise of my column and show is to travel throughout rural America, sampling the cooking and chatting with the cooks and diners.

Knowing the proprietors of a local meat-and-three, I proposed to them a novel idea: Let me cook a tray of potato kugel, I asked, and offer it as one of the three side dishes for a couple of days. We’ll see who eats it and what their reaction is, without telling them that it is quintessential Jewish food. Let’s see if the word gets out and the diners eat more and more kugel each day.

Well, need I tell you that it was such a tremendous success that it now appears on the menu every day and has become a favorite among the yokels, never knowing that it is “Jew-food”?
Then I tried the same with matzo-ball soup, with resounding results. The ultimate success came with my chopped liver, which many of the goyim declared “better than ham-and-cheese.”
Oy, what a victory for God’s chosen people. The local meat-and-three was being slowly converted to a classical Jewish delicatessen, just as the local gentiles were unwittingly being converted to Judaism.

I take no credit for this discovery. All honor goes to God. One can only assume that the goyim stood there with us at the foot of Mount Sinai, and instead of manna, they insisted on ordering meat-and-three.