“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Is Back and Tastier than Ever

For fans of the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the quick, witty dialogue and striking retro sets are the main draw, but the classic New York and Jewish food fall right behind. In the first season, Midge, played by Rachel Brosnahan, brings her brisket to bars to bribe her husband’s way onto stage and jokes at her own Jewish wedding about there being shrimp in the egg rolls.

In fact, we theorized that the entire show is secretly about the power of cooking. When the long-awaited second season returns on December 5, People reports that the food will be back and more prominent than ever.

“I make a hell of a Jell-O mold,” the wannabe-comedienne confesses in one scene of the trailer for the new season. And at a recent event, Brosnahan told reporters, “We talk about a lot of food in season two,” even letting slip that there is “a scene where Midge lists a whole lot of deli food very, very quickly all in one sentence.”

Deli food and comedy have always had inherent ties. When Harry Met Sally is just the beginning — to quote Mel Brooks, “Every Jew is a good storyteller, and delis are bound in Jewish humor.” Midge Maisel lives up to that, and as the second season comes out, so too does a real-life Carnegie Deli pop-up cross-promotion (note the URL: homeofthemaisel.com). “It may be 2018 on the outside, it’s 1958 on the inside,” says the website. The “Maisel” sandwich and other foods that allude to scenes and characters from the show are all at 1958 prices (a 99-cent sandwich? Sign us up). Brosnahan offered her best guess at what the “Maisel” sandwich would be: “It’s gotta be hot pastrami reuben on rye.”

We’ll have to wait and see when the pop-up opens on December 1, but the real treat will be seeing what Midge eats as she jokes her way around New York City and the Catskills and even Paris in season 2.