Pie Crust is the 99%: At Brooklyn Kitchen, the Rolling Pin is a 19th C. NYPD Nightstick

Earl Wilson/The New York Times A rolling pin used by Harry C. Rosenblum, the owner of a food market in Brooklyn, was once a policeman’s nightstick. More than a century ago, an officer gave it to Mr. Rosenblum’s great-grandmother.

Every once in awhile comes along an article that uses food as a lens into city history, food culture and just a damn good story. So that’s why we were pleased to see this excellent piece in the Times by Vincent Mallozzi. (Hell, we were actually green with envy over the scoop.)

It’s about the 23-inch rolling pin owned–and very much used–by Harry Rosenblum, who owns The Brooklyn Kitchen at 100 Frost Street in Williamsburg. Turns out the pin was originally a 19th century NYPD nightstick, gifted to Rosenblum’s great-grandmother Illona Ferenczi by a friendly policeman in the early 1900s. She later used it to chase away her husband, Mallozzi tells us, from their apartment in Manhattan. If you think that’s a great story, be sure to ask Rosenblum about rumrunning. Turns out that’s in the family too.

 

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