BIRTH OF THE SMOKED MEAT
The man behind the best deli in Montreal - Peter Varvaro
When I tell people my life in documentary started because of smoked meat, they laugh.
But it is true. It was our film BIRTH OF THE SMOKED MEAT (Zoe Mapp, Glauco Bermudez and myself) that won us Best Direction at the Montreal World Film Festival, and then from there off to Cannes we flew, red carpets, tipsy hot May nights, barefoot dancing under the white moonlight at Croisette 72 bar which spills onto its back street. Watching the Cohen Brothers film cut on Final Cut - a first - No Country For Old Men. Then we got bored with the razzmatazz and we went down south to my house in Tuchan, where the lilac and almond blossoms curl around the edge of every vineyard and silence is everywhere.
We came back to Montreal with our prize, different. Filmmaking doors were opened, and although we have now all gone our separate ways, Zoe in Toronto, working as a producer and sound mixer, and Glauco, one hell of an amazing-eyed cinematographer, Smoked Meat was our beginning, and it is thanks to the owner of the Main Deli on the Boulevard St. Laurent (known as “The Main”), Peter Varvaro, and to Stan Lewis that the story happened in the first place.
Peter and Stan are no longer here. But the film lives on, it is the testimony of a time, a place, of those people who worked and loved Peter, and when the Boulevard rocked differently than today.
The street reeks of garlic, and quarrels, and bill collectors: orange crates, stuffed full with garbage and decaying fruit, are piled slipshod in most alleys. Swift children gobble pilfered plums; slower cats prowl the fish market." Mordecai Richler (1931-2001), Canadian author, Son of a Smaller Hero (1955).
One cold day on the Boulevard where snow sticks to the ground, encasing life underfoot, iced, an urban fossil, until March or April when the spring comes along, snow melts and the pavement is awash with last year’s life. I met Stan, who introduced me to Peter within the first hour of our meeting. I ate my first smoked meat ever at the Main Deli, which Peter carved for me.
Stan had a plan, and that was to outsmart Schwartz, the other smoked meat plaza literally in front of the Main Deli. He had this bee in his bonnet, it would not leave him, and he kept dragging me to the Main to sample smoked meat. He simply wanted the world to know Peter and how wonderful his smoked meat was. I was in my second year at university, and my next film had to be longer and more accomplished. Stan begged, I refused, till one day I watched Stan and Peter chatter at a the back of the deli. I caught that moment which cements a feeling, a knowledge, a knowing. That was when Birth of the Smoked meat was born with Zoe and Glauco.
You can view the film at the end of this story.
Peter was the Main Stay, for without his Main Deli it would have been a less interesting place. Leonard Cohen, Ryan Larkin and many more were regulars. There are photos and signatures all over the wall of the great and not so great who have graced this place.
Time went by, Peter passed, the Main changed hands, but thankfully left the legacy and some of the staff. I left Montreal. I often think of my days on the Main, with fondness, and often with nostalgia. That’s why, last month I wrote to Peter’s son, Dominic Varvaro to tell me more about his dad and the Main.
My Dad Peter, by Dominic Varvaro
Electricity is hard to describe by explaining what it looks like. You would be better off describing what happens when it is around…I think that's the thing I'll remember most, and miss the most, is the electricity. That’s how I started and finished Dad’s epitaph.Dad was born on 19 September, 1932. He was an entrepreneur. He never said as much but it just wasn’t in him to work for someone else. He did have a job as a telegraph operator for CN railway, but he abandoned it when his father bought a Montreal night club (The El Morocco) which he helped run with his brother for several years. He also ran Allied Vending and Music, a vending machine company that supplied and serviced, amongst other things, cigarette and music machines to the underbelly of Montreal restaurants and clubs. Somewhere in this time, he even operated a small basement diner on Bishop.
So, when his best friend Izzy (Isadore Kravitz—Izzy is story worthy in his own right—an illiterate man who ran a diner on the Main for 13 years) offered to sell his restaurant, Dad jumped at the opportunity. I was 17 at the time and serving overseas when the transaction took place, which was a surprise to everyone including Mom and my three younger brothers. In fact, Dad sold our home to raise the cash to buy Izzy out (we were actually homeless for several weeks while Dad looked for an apartment). This probably sealed the deal on the divorce that Mom had been contemplating for some time.
I started working for dad in 1977 when I got home from Germany at the tender age of 18. The business had two personas at the time. Daytime was for the working-person breakfast and lunch crowd. Dad served daily specials like short-ribs and bean and barley soup, along with home made Jewish and east European staples. The quick service lunch counter drew local businessmen from the clothing, shoe, and produce businesses that populated the quarter. Sadly, the opening of markets in Asia that combined with suburban sprawl brought the end of an era for the clothing manufacturers and the Roy Street fresh produce businesses like Waldman Brothers fish market, Warsaw’s groceries, and the surrounding kosher butchers and poultry shops.
Night time brought out crowds of revellers. Dad stayed open 24 hours at the time so we saw waves of patrons show up for late night eats. Smoked meat and steaks were the most popular. Cheese blintzes (sugary cheese bombs wrapped in pastry dough, fried crisp and served with sour cream – oh my!) and perogies smothered in fried onions were constant sellers. And cheese cake that Dad’s second wife would prepare during the day shift would sell-out most nights. The crowds showed up in shifts. Eleven pm saw the folks from the brasseries and the hockey games. Three am saw the bar and club crowd. And then the taxi driver and bouncer gang would wander in afterwards. The night shift saw an impressive pageant of Montreal colour beyond the after-club day-folk looking for a nosh– entertainers and poets, sex workers and scammers, and a lot of lonelies looking for a place to have a quiet coffee and familiar face to chat with.
For the first couple of years, Dad served Old Fashioned smoked meat. A popular brand that was actually quite good – deep red meat, large steer briskets generously spiced. It also cooked well in the steamer so we could move a lot of briskets when it got busy. One day, Dad called me into the kitchen and asked me to try what he’d just taken out of the oven.
He was always experimenting with something and had already mastered preserving dill pickles and cherry peppers and the coleslaw that I still can’t quite replicate. On this occasion he’d actually marinated and roasted a brisket. I remember that it was horribly salty and overcooked and didn’t taste like anything I recognized. He told me he wanted to make his own smoked meat. I remember thinking he was crazy. It took him about 6 months to figure it out, at which point he was mixing several briskets of his homemade briskets with the Old Fashioned and ultimately, he installed a walk-in smoker and served only his own brand. (Jeanne's note - which Stan and hundreds vouched for).At the age of 81, Dad’s diabetes, a lifelong affliction, got the better of him. His third wife sold the business about a year after his death. I’m glad that the business is still there and showcasing how Dad helped build a chapter of Montreal’s history. I always feel a connection to the Main and stop by occasionally for a charcoal grilled liver steak, something I could never imagine eating as a 17 year old, and share a few memories with the staff that are still there and loyal to Dad’s memories. Here is the film: BIRTH OF THE SMOKED MEAT. It is dedicated to Peter and to Stanley of the Main
MORE PHOTOS
You can follow Dominic’s foodie sites on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thesauceison/ and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesauceison/ (and soon on YouTube under the same name).
About Dominic
The Sauce is On is a virtual business launched after I left the corporate world. It’s a return to first-loves that combines real food photography with home cooking food preparation and catering to a select clientele (and an occasional family memoire). Favourite meals and reminiscences of what Mom and Dad taught us about cooking can be experienced at The Sauce is On. I also write family memoire’s and fictional stories grounded in my experiences in the Canadian Armed Forces - the Globe and Mail published my Remembrance day essay recently “Why a veteran like me cries on Remembrance Day”.
Thank you for passing by, have a wonderful weekend in the heat, be safe, and for those Montreal friends, take a walk down the Main and grab a Smoked Meat!
Jeanne
It was such a pleasure to write about the Main Deli, and to re-meet Peter. There was so much I wanted to add, such as the fact he supported Stan in so many ways, not only in friendship. Also how Peter helped Salim over the years to get his papers for Canada. Never letting his down, always understanding his hard it was for Salim to wait out the years till his wife and family arrived. Peter was a great man and I am grateful to have known him.
Love the photo of Dad and the Cad