Latke, latka: ‘cause it’s tradition!

Latkes are a simple yet delicious holiday treat. Try baking instead of frying, or dress them up with dill sauce and fish. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan)

They’re sometimes greasy, sometimes salty and soggy, and they are fried in oil. They’re high in calories, sometimes; high in fat, sometimes; high in cholesterol, sometimes. But they’re oh, so good! What are they? They’re potato pancakes, otherwise known as latkes (or latkas), in what we believe to be Yiddish, or as levivot in Hebrew.

With all the oil used for frying, traditional latkes may be considered an unhealthy food. Yet, each Chanukah, many of us who are staunch-hearted and old-fashioned spend time hand-grating potatoes (nearly always accidentally suffering at least one scraped knuckle). The more modern among us risk producing a sort of liquid mush by using a food processor or blender, a different take on a holiday classic.

Why do we keep making these little pancakes year after year? Why do we eat them for Chanukah in the first place? Tevye might answer, “It’s tradition!” An old folk proverb says, “Chanukah latkes teach us that one cannot live by miracles alone.”

The word latke is not Yiddish as everyone assumes, after all, writes Jewish food writer and cookbook author Joan Nathan. Rather, it comes from the Russian latka, which is a type of pastry, “perhaps from obsolete Russian oladka … flat cake of leavened wheat dough.” This, in turn, probably came from a Middle Greek word eladion, oil cake, she writes, which probably comes from elaion, meaning olive oil.

Potato pancakes do seem to have originated among poor Eastern European Jews, but potatoes did not actually become a staple food for these Jews until the mid-19th century. John Cooper, in Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food, writes that Jews from Lithuania ate pancakes made from potato flour for Chanukah and had borrowed the idea from the Ukrainians, who made a potato pancake dish with goose fat called kartoflani platske, which they ate for Christmas. Since Chanukah fell about the same time, and there were plenty of geese to provide goose fat (schmaltz), we could conclude that schmaltz became a substitute for oil, following the holiday tradition. Jews living in the Pale of Settlement in the 17th century probably adapted the recipe for Chanukah as a way to dress basic potatoes differently for the holiday. Cooper adds that many Eastern European Jews ate buckwheat latkes for Chanukah, while Polish Jews made placki, pancakes of potato flour fried in oil.

MY MOM’S CLASSIC LATKES
six servings

6 peeled potatoes
1 medium onion
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup flour
oil

1. Grate potatoes and onion into a bowl or chop with blender or food processor.
2. Add eggs, salt, pepper and flour and blend.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan. Drop batter by tablespoon around pan. Fry until brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.

(Note: this recipe can also be used to make potato kugel by pouring the batter into a greased casserole dish and baking in a 350°F oven for 45 minutes.)

LOW-FAT LATKES
eight-10 servings

3 lbs coarsely grated potatoes
1 coarsely grated onion
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup egg substitute or 2 eggs plus 4 whites
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil spray

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place nonstick baking sheets in oven to heat.
2. Drain off as much liquid as possible from bowl with grated potatoes and onion.
3. Add flour, baking powder, eggs or egg substitute, salt and pepper and blend.
4. Spray baking sheet with oil. Spoon small mounds of potato mixture onto baking sheets.

Bake until brown on one side then flip to other side, making sure to place them where there is oil. Transfer to a platter and serve at once.

WOLFGANG PUCK’S POTATO PANCAKES WITH SMOKED SALMON AND DILL SAUCE

1 pound coarsely grated potatoes
1 small coarsely grated onion
1 egg
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
oil
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp chopped dill
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp snipped chives
1/2 pound thinly sliced smoked salmon* 

1. Squeeze dry the potato-onion mixture after grating. Add egg, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan. Drop tablespoons of the mixture around pan and flatten with the back of a spoon. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels and continue with remaining batter.
3. In a bowl, combine sour cream, dill lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Sprinkle with chives. Arrange pancakes on a platter. Serve with dill cream and smoked salmon.

*In place of or in addition to salmon, you can serve with two ounces of caviar.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly shuk walks in English in Jerusalem’s Jewish food market.