Wally's Delicatessen has been a landmark in Cardiff city centre since 1981. Now the current owner, Wally's son Steven Salamon, has written a book about his family's story of persecution and escape from Nazi Europe, as well as the founding and evolution of the family store.
This extract is taken from the book, From The Anschluss to the Arcades.
Christmas at Wally's was magical. It would begin a few weeks in advance, when the Christmas goods came in: huge salamis, stollen (German Christmas cake, with or without marzipan, covered in icing sugar), German gingerbread, chocolate cakes, pfeffernusse (small round spiced cookies covered in a white icing glaze), Maritza's favourite, kourabiedes (Greek shortbread biscuits) and panettones (Italian Christmas cakes with candied peel and raisins), which were hung by strings from the ceiling along with the salamis.
“It was so lovely,” says Maritza.
“If you've seen programmes on television about the continental shops in Italy and Spain, that is how it looked. There was just so much of each country's specialities for Christmas, because people wanted that, and they'd order it a few months before.”
Rochelle remembers it as an Aladdin's Cave, beautiful and brimming with Parma hams, gingerbread hearts and a cornucopia of other continental foods. Mum, who helped in the shop at Christmas for many years, recalls:
“It was a wonderland, decorated not with balloons but with cake. We never used decorations because the food was the decoration. It was very colourful – bright reds and yellows on the wrapping – and everything stood out. And, of course, it was the smell as well. People always came in and said: ‘I've been dying for this smell. I couldn't wait to get back here and have another smell’.”
Dai's Christmases were all about the chaos of the meat counter, where he and about six other staff members would clamour to serve the endless queues. He remembers:
“It's a wonder we managed to get the tills to balance, but we managed to get through it. We had stock everywhere: stock hanging from the ceiling, we sat on stock, we had stock underneath cupboards. We worked long hours over Christmas, horrendously long hours. My longest day started at 6.30 in the morning and finished at 10 at night. I used to work every day in December. We all did: me, David and Wally. We were allowed one day off the first week in December, and then we put our foot down. Yet in some ways, January was worse. Sometimes, even now, I wonder which is the hardest month, December or January, because in December, even though you're so busy, there's so much to do and so much going on. The days and weeks fly. January is so quiet, you're looking for things to do, and the days are so long, and at the end of it, you think, Thank God January is over.”
From The Anschluss to the Arcades is available in store at Wally's, priced £11.99. It is also available from Wally's online at www.wallysdeli.co.uk/hampers-and-gifts/book.html and from Amazon here.
