Meet The Wannabe Pastrami King of Tuscany
Image by facebook
By Ari Feldman June 13, 2017
Gianluca Tonelli, the putative pastrami king of Tuscany, has the blues.
Despite his passion, despite the klezmer blaring from his food truck, and despite the adorable porkpie hat on his head, he can’t seem to get his fellow Italians to eat the meat. As the New York Times reported, even as other street foods have colonized Italian street corners, the pastrami sandwich continues to play second fiddle to Italian meaty delicacies.
Even Tonelli’s son Gregorio needs his prosciutto fix, to the chagrin of the boy’s grandmother: “You should be eating a beautiful pastrami sandwich,” she tells him.
Tonelli had his pastrami epiphany at Katz’s Delicatessen in New York nearly 20 years ago. As his wife says, “Pastrami has always stayed in his heart.”
Tonelli makes his living as a veterinarian, but he enjoys brining, seasoning, and slowly — very slowly — cooking his rich, red slabs of pastrami. And, of course, serving them to willing customers.
“I like it a lot,” one happy customer said said. “It could find a niche here. But not more — I mean, we have la porchetta.”
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
