Latke v. Hamantash

Tonight is burrito night the annual Latke vs. Hamantash Debate at the University of Chicago.

It’s free. At 7:30 p.m. in Mandel Hall, 1137 E. 57th St.

It’s a tradition where the hyper-educated make fun of Jews and Jewish food — but it’s ok cause some of them are Jews too. The set up is: which is better, the placki kartoflane latke, or the kolache hamantash? Professors then commence using their expertise to win the point and some laughs. It’s been going on for a long time and is enormously popular, if anticlimactic — the potato pancake-like latke always wins.

But it’s humorous, in an extremely high brow way.

Psychologists tell us that our states of soul make the world, not the world our states of soul; that, in Plato’s formula, latkes and hamantashen are good because we are Jewish, not that we are Jewish because they are good. You see the relativistic consequences of all that. If you think that economists attribute nasty motives to human beings, wait ’til you find out what psychologists believe.

In truth they all follow their false messiah, Freud, who was secretly in the pay of, yes, the Manischewitz people, who out of economic motives wanted to spread the appeal of their products beyond the Jews and turned to the psychologist for help. So Freud, for popularity’s sake, interpreted the latke, the male, Maccabean food, as in its circular forms symbolic of the male goal—I need not elaborate on this lascivious suggestion; and the hamantash—the joyous token of Esther’s success, the female triumph—he explained by means of its angularity, its pointiness.

Propriety forbids my going further.

— Professor in Social Thought Allan D. Bloom, “Restoring the Jewish Canon” (1981).

The most successful are the profs who jab at academia with the vigor of someone who carries serious doubts about the usefulness of pure scholarship. Austan Goolsbee, the now staff director and chief economist of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, was hilarious two years ago.

Recipes excerpted from “The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate” follow.

Latkes

Of course, no one makes latkes like Momma. The grating, the making, the smells and the mess are what memories are made of: oil splattering, potatoes turning black, shredded skin in the batter, kitchen smoky, Momma frying a new batch of latkes while everyone in the other room eats them as fast as she can make them. Sodden, heavy, crispy, delicious, smothered with sour cream, sometimes smelling of shmaltz. Ah, those were the days! It’s not clear that Momma’s memories are quite as pleasant, but it is always good to have the family around, and so grate and fry she must, and does. Eat, eat, my children.

In consideration of those Mommas (and Poppas) who’d like to be out there eating crispy latkes with the rest of the family, the following recipe suggests how this can happen.

2 pounds russet (baking) potatoes, peeled and placed in a bowl of cold water
⅓ cup grated onion
2 eggs, lightly beaten (1 egg per pound of potatoes)*
1 cup all-purpose flour (best) or ½ cup matzah meal**
1 teaspoon salt, plus additional to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Peanut or canola oil for frying

1. Line a large baking sheet with paper towels. If not serving the latkes immediately—out of the frying pan into the dining room—preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Have a large bowl of cold water ready.
2. Grate the potatoes, using a hand grater or food processor fitted with the medium shredding disc. As potatoes are grated, transfer them to the bowl of water. When all of the potatoes are grated, set aside for 5 minutes. Drain the shredded potatoes in a large colander, rinsing with cold water. Transfer to a clean bowl.
3. Add the onion, the eggs, flour, salt, and pepper. Thoroughly combine the mixture.
4. In a large, preferably straight-sided pan, add oil to a depth of ¼ to ⅓ inch. Heat oil until a shred of potato dropped in the oil sizzles immediately.
5. Form pancakes, using 2 tablespoons from a regular silverware set. Scoop up a generous spoonful of the potato mixture with one spoon, flatten the mixture with the other spoon. Slide the latke into the oil. Repeat until the pan is full, but not crowded. Cook the latkes until browned at the edges. Turn the latkes over and cook until fully browned. Transfer the finished latkes to the lined baking sheet to drain excess oil. Repeat with the remaining mixture.
6. If not serving the latkes immediately, transfer the sheet to the preheated oven to keep warm. If serving even later, set the latkes aside to cool to room temperature, then freeze until ready to serve. Reheat the latkes in a 350-degree oven, and drain again on paper towels because reheating will release more oil.
   Serve with sour cream or applesauce. Add salt to taste.

* Too many eggs will overwhelm the taste of potato.
** Too much starch will make the latkes heavy. Use only about ½ cup flour or ¼ cup matzah meal per pound of potatoes—just enough to bind the mixture. If doubling the recipe, add flour slowly; the full amount may not be needed. Toward the end, the mixture gets very loose. It is better to release the extra liquid by squeezing it on a spoon rather than by adding more flour.

Liberation Hamantashen

As the Latke-Hamantash Debate demonstrates, even those who fight together for the honor of the hamantash can come to blows over the matter of the best filling. The traditionalists (conservatives?) look askance at anything but poppy seed or prune, and argue over which of these is most destined for this delicate pastry. Others prefer cherry, apricot, or apple, but even these innovations are rejected by the modern apikoros, the child raised in America who sees chocolate chips as the only possible substance that should be stuffed inside the hamantash.

And then there is the other eternal question: cake or cookie dough? On the Web today one can find countless combinations of dough and filling, and the problem is compounded: which is the true hamantash? How elusive reality, how enduring the quest to understand the Divine plan!

Ex-Queen Vashti, who walked away from a life of ease in the palace of Shushan, Persia, long ago, thereby paving the way for Esther’s ascendancy and the salvation of the Jews, reminds us of what is important in life, aside from hamantashen. Vashti refused to be degraded and disgraced by parading around like a Persian Miss America before her husband’s drunken friends, and maintained her dignity and independence in the face of male oppression. In honor of this early feminist, Robin Leidner, University of Pennsylvania, offers her special Liberation Hamantashen.