Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hanukkah baking time
Cheese pastries honor hero at the Hanukkah table
Latkes have a story behind them.
At the culinary heart of Hanukkah (which begins at sundown Dec. 12) are foods fried in oil to commemorate the triumph of the Maccabees, who won back their sacred temple, and the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days.
But there’s another Hanukkah story, not as well-known, that shifts the culinary narrative to a brave woman and her killer cheese. This story from the Book of Judith explains why dairy makes it onto the holiday table.
According to “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible,” the Assyrian leader Nebuchadnezzar sent one of his generals, Holofernes, to destroy the Jews of Bethulia, a town that commanded access to the road to Jerusalem. The plan was to seize the spring at the foot of the mountain, so the Jews would be deprived of their water supply.
When the cisterns in the town were empty, the people began to lose heart. It seemed better to live as slaves than to die in vain. One woman in town, a beautiful widow named Judith, had another plan.
She left Bethulia, dressed in festival garments to entice any man she might meet, and equipped with wine and food. The Assyrian guards — entranced by Judith’s looks — opened the gates of the city and escorted her up the hill to the enemy camp.
Pleased by her appearance, her beauty and her wit, Holofernes invited Judith to a banquet in his tent. When his officers left him alone with her, the general was so charmed by her that he ate the salty cheese cakes she had prepared, then quenched his thirst with her wine. More cheese cakes, much more wine. Until he fell drunkenly asleep.
And then, Judith pulled out his sword, and cut off his head.
She left the camp without arousing suspicion, her maid carrying the head in a bag. When the army saw their general’s head, they panicked and fled.
Because Judith saved the Jews from a death order, many Jews honor her by eating cheese and dairy dishes: rugelach, blintzes, cheesecake, cheese latkes, even sour cream on potato latkes.
“We used to have a cake that was made out of cheese, like a fried-cheese-type thing,” says chef Laura Frankel, culinary director for Kosher Media International. Until the fried cheese tradition made it to Northern and Eastern Europe where they fried things in schmaltz (animal fat).
“Obviously, with kosher rules,” Frankel explained, “you can’t fry anything with cheese in schmaltz.” Mixing dairy and meat is banned in Jewish dietary laws. “So they changed the cheese out for potatoes. It was something people ate a lot of, they were filling, they were plentiful.”
This brings us to a shocking revelation. Though the original latkes were cheese latkes, the Ashkenazic Jews (who brought the latke to America) subbed potatoes.
And thus was born the latke that we all love today.