Carnegie Deli book (2005) and deli slang

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:48 PM -0500 1/12/05, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>HOW TO FEED FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE:
>THE CARNEGIE DELI
>A GIANT SANDWICH, A LITTLE DELI, A HUGE SUCCESS
>by Milton Parker (Owner of the Carnegie Deli)
>and Allyn Freeman
>171 pages, $21.95
>Hoboken, NJ: John WIley & Sons 2005
>Pg. 114:
>Pastrami has its own ordering nickname, "a pistol." At the Carnegie Deli, you
>will hear the servers calling out, "A pistol on whiskey down," (rye bread
>toasted) or "A pistol dressed" (Russian dressing and coleslaw on the bread).
>
>The reason is not because pastrami is the king of sandwiches and merits its
>own special name. You be the counterman for a moment. What would you make if
>you heard a server shout, "Ordering a ..._ami_ on rye to go." Did you answer,
>"pastrami"? Or on (Pg. 115--ed.) second thought, do you think it was "salami"?
>When you hear the words pistol or salami, there's never any confusion.

And of course, someone *could* have been ordering a tsunami on rye,
which is therefore referred to  by the Carnegie disambiguators as a
tsuris.

Larry