We invited our Jewish friends (one lapsed Jew, the other turning Buddhist) over to dinner (we are a lapsed catholic and an agnostic) and prepared some traditional food. I made both sweet potato and traditional latkes, which we served with homemade applesauce and some sour cream. Our guests brought kugel, and we had liberal amounts of red wine along with some horsey doover type stuff. Desert was cheesecake. This is the first time we’ve attempted something like this and it went off very well, possibly due to the wine. Anybody else do this sort of thing?
Not in a long time–my new holiday tradition involves Bollywood movies and samosas. So, you’ll invite me next year, right? Mmmm, latkes…
I don’t know if there is a traditional Hanukkah dinner per se, at least not in my family, except for the latkes. Roast chicken/turkey or pot roast/brisket are typical, but I wouldn’t say required. Roasted potatoes are probably more standard than anything, IIRC.
Latkes from scratch are a lot of work, but are divine. Make sure you have a box grater (not the same with a food processor), and squeeze all that water out! Sour cream for me please…
We make a Hankkah party for my wife’s high school friends and their families every year, and we always have potato latkes with applesauce and donuts for dessert. What the main dish is varies from year to year, this year, it will be chicken wings prepared in a variety of ways.
As kids we would have a heap of friends over for latkes. It’s not exactly “hannukah dinner” in the way I think of festive dinners. Just a buunch of people, grating a buuunch of potatoes, and eating an asston of nature’s least-healthy food: potatoes with copious fat. 
It’s so much work I can’t be bothered now that I’m a grownup.
We had a very small, family-only Hanukkah dinner this year. We usually have a large dinner with lots of friends, but we just don’t have the time or energy this year. So far I haven’t heard any whining from the friends about missing out on latkes, but I expect that to start soon (or whenever they realize that Hanukkah is over).
OTOH, my boss had never heard of latkes (or matzoh meal, for that matter) and was very intrigued. I was trying to get a latke recipe out of the SO, which didn’t go so well since she just makes them “by feel”. I came down the next morning and she’d made a latke kit for the boss, who was thrilled.
It helped that we cheated on latkes this year. The other SO is a hashbrowns freak; on a visit to Sam’s Club a few months ago we saw some dehydrated hashbrowns and bought them for him. The first time he made them he noticed their perfect latke texture.
So instead of the peeling and the grating and the washing and the squeezing, this year we just plopped a bunch of shreds into hot water and waited a half-hour. Voila, latke potatoes. I highly recommend this if you’re just not up to the whole project.
Also, salad spinners work well for drying shredded potatoes. They may not last long afterwards, however.
They weren’t difficult to make, really. The food processor made short work of the potatoes, although squeezing out the water was a pain, so I’m not sure how a hand grater would provide any advantage (?). I had peeled everything hours before and diced up the onions, so it was just a matter of combining everything with some egg, flour and salt and frying them up in two large skillets.
I agree with Mixolydian that there is a difference. Food processor latkes are coarser - it’s a difference in texture very noticable to the latke purist. However, it’s true that when you use the food processor, the latkes are 90% as good for 10% of the work.
I guess I’ll have to try an experiment in order to be persuaded: seems like a grater is a grater is a grater, but then I’m not Jewish.
Oh dear god, you don’t make latkes by using the grater like you’de use to make shredded cheese (??!!)
faints dead away from the shock
In the food processor you have to pulp the potato using the knife blades, on the box grater you use the “parmesan cheese” finest grater option. Since the process is totally different, the result is also different.
Also the onion should be grated on the finest side of the grater as well (or pulped in the FP), and mixed in with the squeezed-out potato pulp, not diced. Diced! Well I never.
Wow, I’ve guess I’ve never had “real” latkes, then. My Jewish SO would about fall down laughing if I suggested hand-grating everything. Food processor all the way. Oy vey!
You can come celebrate with us if I can come celebrate with you. 
Edit: The Electric Warrior family also had latkes. We’d just bought pomegranate-based vinegar from a specialty shop and they went amazingly well together. Plus some sour cream.
Perhaps your food processor is different than mine, which has a grating blade option (also a slicing blade option for things like scalloped potatoes). One simply removes the cutting blade, inserts an adapter, and places the grater blade on top of it. There are even two different graters, a fine and a large. I can shred potatoes, carrots or cheese with equal ease: no pulp and no grated fingers.
No, my food processor works the same way. It just that the potatoes in latkes should not be shredded. The potatoes should be pulped with the “knife/chopping blade” into fine paste. Using the “fine grater” insert, on the food processor, you will still have shreds. Latkes made of visible shreds are an abomination.
If using the box grater, the ultra-fine side, visible on the left in this product photo should be used; this will also pulp the potatoes, and do so more finely than is possible with the food processor.
Heresy! The pulp/shred debate is only overshadowed by the sweet (Polish) vs. pepper (Russian) issue.
My wife made latkes for the first night with hand grated shreds and they were great. Her dad makes pulp-based latkes and they are for the old and toothless. If I wanted a regular pancake made with potato flour, I’d have asked for one 
FINALLY I find someone who understands the true spirit of the Latke Debate.
NOW YOU ARE MY MORTAL ENEMY.
shakes fist
Eh, Mickey D’s makes a pretty good latke with shredded potato…
LOL. I love those things. Deep fried and doused with salt. In summer camp we called them “hockey pucks.” If my mom knew what I was eating she’d have died of the shame.
This one calls for pulped.
Sounds to me like it’s a matter of personal preference. Our Jewish friends thought ours were great.
In my kitchen:
Food processor; chopped, not shredded.
Sprinkle potatoes with salt, let rest, then drain off water (much easier than squeezing).
Onion, egg, flour. HOT OIL!
Same general procedure works for many kinds of vegetable patties.