Corned Beef

IN THE Kibitz Room at Attman's Delicatessen, on Lombard Street, there are photographs resembling artifacts of a vanished civilization. They show this block in its bustling, zesty, disheveled youth when the aroma of corned beef wafted like lilacs through the air, and chicken fat dangled gracefully from fingers, and the customers lined up at the secondhand clothing store and the public bath. In history's rearview mirror, poverty never looked so good. Seymour Attman, who got away from us a week ago at 76, was the last remaining family link to that era. The others -- Tulkoff's Horseradish, Pastore's Italian Grocery, Stone's Bakery, all the founding fathers and mothers who created Corned Beef Row early in the last century and turned it into one of the city's most storied strips -- have all gone now. They have either died or closed up shop, or handed the business over to newcomers.

Seymour Attman, owner of Attman's Deli on Baltimore's famous Corned Beef Row, died yesterday morning at Mercy Medical Center of complications from a heart attack he suffered three weeks ago. He was 76. Working in the 87-year-old deli founded by his father, Mr. Attman helped make the name Attman synonymous with Baltimore corned beef. "All over the world, whenever I mentioned my last name, people would ask me if I was related to the deli in Baltimore," said Mr. Attman's son, Marc Attman.

During the summer when we often have weekend house guests, I always serve casual meals. I'll plan a menu that includes as its main course an interesting sandwich. My updated versions might include BLTs with heirloom tomatoes and arugula or pita pockets mounded with chicken salad seasoned with mango chutney and walnuts. Because sandwiches are such easy fare for warm-weather entertaining, I have continued to expand my repertoire, recently adding Po' Boys With Corned Beef, Creamy Caraway Coleslaw and Swiss.

Grapefruit, Lovage and Cucumber Salad; Lettuce and Mint Soup; Salmon with Leek-Tarragon Butter; Glazed Strawberry and Lemon Curd Tart. If you think the above is the menu of a trendy American restaurant, think again. You'll find these dishes in one of several modern Irish cookbooks. True, Irish cooks still make traditional dishes such as colcannon -- a cabbage and potato dish, shepherd's pie, and what we all think of as Irish cuisine -- corned beef and cabbage. But that's just the beginning.

Seymour Attman, 75, owner of Baltimore's oldest Jewish deli, shuffles out of his restaurant's front door and gives a tour of the boarded-up shops, weedy lots and heaps of rubble remaining from what once was the heart of Jewish Baltimore: Corned Beef Row. "It was a real lively place. You had Saler's Dairy there on the corner, Pastore's grocery. ... Over there was where David Yankelov sold live chickens on the street," said the son of Russian immigrants whose father bought Attman's Deli at 1019 E. Lombard St. in 1933.

All events are tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day, unless otherwise noted. An Poitin Stil Irish Pub & Restaurant, 2323 York Road, Timonium, 410-560-7900. Four-day "Stil Smilin' Festival 2000" today through Sunday. Live music and entertainment from afternoon till late night: Lakewalk, Off the Boat, Maggie's Leap, Barry Nelson, Rigadoo, Irish dancers, Ed McBride, Spalpeens. Outside tent with beer, Irish food and memorabilia. Sunday at 12: 30 p.m., bus service to the St. Patrick's Day parade in downtown Baltimore.

St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday this year, presenting a dilemma for those who like to observe the wearing of the green with the traditional boiled dinner of corned beef and cabbage, but feel obliged to abide by the weekly Lenten abstinence from meat. Cardinal William H. Keeler has promulgated a dispensation from the Friday abstinence for March 17. "Because there are many people in the archdiocese who are of Irish heritage and others who wish they were, and because they desire to eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, Cardinal Keeler has decided to dispense all from the obligation of abstinence on Friday, March 17," Monsignor W. Francis Malooly, chancellor of the archdiocese, said in a message sent to every parish.

This week's menus Each day of the week offers a menu aimed at a different aspect of meal planning. There's a family meal, a kids' menu aimed at younger tastes, a heat-and-eat meal that recycles leftovers, a budget meal that employs a cost-cutting strategy, a meatless or "less meat" dish for people who may not be strict vegetarians but are trying to cut down on meat, an express meal that requires little or no preparation, and an entertaining menu that's...

GROWING UP IN an Irish-American home, I ate a fair amount of corned beef. It was another form of brisket, one of our favorite Sunday dinners.I am not sure how my family became a clan of brisket eaters, instead of salmon lovers. My maternal grandmother, who was born in Ireland and lived with my family when I was a boy, seemed to prefer fresh fish as the entree of choice when "company" -- distant relatives or acquaintances from Ireland -- would visit our house for dinner.Once I tagged along with my grandmother when she went to the local fish market.