FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)Esteemed colleagues and clergy…it is an honor to be invited here tonight and an honor to be included among the many participants of previous latke-hamentaschen debates. And to prepare for this evening, I studied many of those arguments…arguments about the political implications of the latke or the oedipal underpinnings of the hamentaschen.
And, were this many years ago when I was still an English major at Haverford College (note if you will the skill by which I seamlessly dropped the name of my college), were I still that undergraduate English major, I would gleefully read into these innocent foods. I would happily posit a feminist analysis of the latke or argue that Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is a retelling of the Purim story (I would have figured something out!). The problem is, in the years since I’ve graduated I’ve lost the academic’s ability to analyze, interpret, read into, you know…basically, BS.
I have been making both latkes and hamentaschen every year for the past 13 years. One might even say, this is my bat mitzvah year of being a maker of latkes and hamentaschen. And at first, the thought of selecting one over the other was a Sophie’s choice. How do you ask a mother to make such a choice? Between latke and hamentasch? Between winter and spring? Between Hanukah and Purim?
But, since becoming a mom, I’ve become more practical. As a mom, like every other mom, I must juggle a highly complicated mess of competing schedules and needs and therefore, tonight, I wish to offer an argument, to consider a factor that I believe has never been offered in the history of this great debate. And that is…which food…the latke or the hamanetaschen is less of a pain in the ass to make.
Let me give you a little history. In 1996, the year my oldest child, my daughter Sofie was born, I felt compelled to make latkes and hamentaschen from scratch—after all, I was now a Jewish mom, and I believe there are laws requiring all Jewish moms to make things like brisket and chicken soup and matzo balls and then fish for compliments by asking your family “aren’t those the fluffiest matzo balls you’ve ever eaten?” as they are eating said matzo balls. So I did what every new Jewish mom does and called my mom and asked for my grandmother’s recipes.
And they were fine…really…but over the years I’ve experimented with non-Grandma Hilda recipes. And I’ve settled on my favorites. A latke recipe from the Washington Post and the hamentaschen recipe from Jayne Cohen’s beautiful cookbook, The Gefilte Variations.
I present my first piece of supporting evidence – this is the latke recipe and this…is the hamentaschen. Latkes contain 7 ingredients (including salt and pepper) and require three steps that take less than an hour. You simply grate the potatoes and onions, mix in the egg and flour, season with salt and pepper and slide spoonfuls into oil. Hamentaschen require 8 basic ingredients plus additional for each of the many filling options—one never makes just one kind of hamentaschen—one needs to make the favorite filling for each member of her family. They take 7 steps and a minimum of 4-5 hours of prep and baking. And, I will humbly and honestly tell you that both my latkes and hamentaschen are amazingly delicious. Truly.
But, I will just as honestly admit that my hamentaschen look terrible. I cannot get them to stay in that perfect triangle. No matter which tip I faithfully follow – sealing the edges with water, not overstuffing the pastry, rolling a thicker dough, my hamentaschen open like flowers in the oven. This does not prevent any of us from gobbling down all of them, but it would prevent someone from being able to identify them as hamentaschen, which is partially the reason why I’ve never offered to bake them on TV as I have with latkes.
Believe me, I am not putting forth my pain-in-the-ass argument for selfish reasons. On the contrary, I tend to be more Martha Stewart than Rachael Ray. But what ends up happening, is that is far easier to buy hamentaschen. Which means something profound is taken from our homes.
As my mother says, on the holidays, our homes should smell like yontif. There is something about walking into a home on Friday night and smelling challah in the oven, or gathering around the stove on the first night of Hanukkah eating latkes hot out of the pan. But, I challenge you to tell me the difference between a hamentaschen and any other butter cookie lying cold and bereft of smell in a white bakery box.
My second piece of supporting evidence…A truly delicious hamentaschen is made with butter – not margarine or Crisco. Which means they are milchig, which means the meal that precedes the cookie must be dairy.
The latke, on the other hand, is pareve – making it equally suitable as a side dish for brisket or a conduit for sourcream. And, by the way, the argument made in Emma Goldman’s famous “Blood of our Foremothers” speech that the final ingredient of the latke is the blood that drips from our scrapped knuckles is wrong. I don’t know if Emma Goldman ever actually made latkes, but in all my years making latkes, I never once scraped my knuckles or injured my fingers. What I do is stop grating when I get dangerously close to the end of the potato. Really, it’s a potato…the ½ inch I toss in the trash is worth keeping my fingers intact. Plus, the addition of blood would make the latkes treif according to the laws of the Torah that forbids us from ingesting blood.
But I digress into yucky territory.
And finally, the latke’s history. It was originally made with cheese – the potato not being a staple of the Middle East. It was the Eastern European Jews who changed the latke into the cheaper and pareve (and, may I add, surprisingly high in potassium) potato pancake. The fried cheese pancake symbolized the story of Judith. Judith was the Hasmonean woman who lured the Assyrian General Holofernes into her tent and fed him cheese and wine until he passed out at which time she cut off his head. This gave the Maccabees an advantage in battle.
And so I leave you with this…with which symbol should we nourish our children? A wicked man’s hat? Or a strong, brave, Jewish woman?
My friends, the answer is clear. The latke is superior.
Now…if you want to talk challah….
Meredith Jacobs, a columnist for the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES, delivered these remarks at the Feb. 18 annual Latke-Hamentasch Debate held this year at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C.