On Sunday, crowds of thousands rode ferries to Governors Island to attend a kind of New York-centric Coachella for Jewish food and culture.<\/p>\n
With glistening waters and the Statue of Liberty in sight, the droves then descended upon a lush lawn for the festival, the Great Nosh<\/a>. Revelers in flip-flops held inflatable green pickles while they danced on the grass. People wearing Hebrew-lettered jewelry and Star of David necklaces waited in line for portable toilets. Couples strolled together with cups of Van Leeuwen ice cream paired with black-and-white cookies from Zabar\u2019s.<\/p>\n The festival\u2019s stalls were filled with Jewish institutions that had buddied up with buzzy establishments to serve New Yawky gastronomic fusions, a concept that is the Great Nosh\u2019s guiding idea. Katz\u2019s Deli paired with Santo Taco for a pastrami taco slathered with habanero and avocado salsas. Russ & Daughters paired with the Williamsburg-based Chinese restaurant Bonnie\u2019s for daikon radish cakes dolloped with cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche and smoked salmon.<\/p>\n At the Katz\u2019s and Santo Taco stand, where men carved slices of the deli\u2019s fabled pastrami, Jake Dell<\/a>, the establishment\u2019s fifth-generation owner, kept an eye on things.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beauty of this festival is its blending of food traditions,\u201d Dell said. \u201cJewish food, in and of itself, is such a diaspora. Katz\u2019s is the oldest institution here today, and Santo Taco is among the youngest, and there\u2019s something beautiful about that, mixing it all together. Pickles and corn tortillas go hand in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n Samuel Halpern, a senior at the Bronx High School of Science, braved a long line for a chicken tikka-stuffed bagel from Moonrise Bagels and the clouty downtown Indian restaurant Dhamaka<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Lower East Side used to be Jewish; that\u2019s why we have Katz\u2019s Deli and Russ & Daughters there,\u201d Halpern said. \u201cNow, everybody is in the Lower East Side, and Dhamaka is just blocks away from Russ & Daughters. New York City is a melting pot, so why wouldn\u2019t our food continue to reflect that?\u201d<\/p>\n