Nope. Pure-blood Ashkenazi Jew here. There might be some Cossack lurking in the past, but no Sephardim. And we have no other culinary customs that are remotely Sephardic.
Honestly, I think my family custom comes from “sugar tastes good”.
While we’re in the kosher kitchen, do people make Rugalach? I just got my grandmother’s recipe last night from a cousin and it’s pretty vague on the filling. My two strongest memories of her rugalach were cinnamon, sugar, and raisin, or fruit jam (usually raspberry). Any others?
As a side note, her recipe has “1/2 cup sugar or 12 packets of Sweet & Low”. I thought this was hysterical, but then remembered that my grandfather was diabetic. Now it’s adorable.
We used to put sugar on latkes too, as well as applesauce. Pure Ashkenazi.
The sugar probably goes back to the time when you didn’t go to the store and buy jars of applesauce-- you made it yourself. My mother made our applesauce, and added very little sugar to it, but then put a bowl of sugar, as well as saccharine, on the table, so people who liked it sweeter could add more sugar, or people who preferred artificial sweetener could use that instead.
I’m actually doing something similar, in that I’ve bought unsweetened applesauce, and I’m putting sugar and Splenda on the table.
Albeit, we’ve had these neighbors, from right across the hall, in our bubble since the beginning, I’m still taking some precautions with the food. I bought those little lunchbox containers of applesauce, and everybody gets their own, instead of having a serving bowl on the table. I’m giving everyone their own little dish of sour cream as well. I have Splenda in packets, and sugar in a diner-style shaker. No spoons going into common bowls. I bought wrapped pats of butter, even, no common butter. Serving drinks from 20oz bottles (soda), or bottles of beer.
The other food is going to have to go on common platters, but it’s served with a fork or tongs, not spoons. The peanut sauce won’t be served on the tofu, like I normally would serve it-- it’s going in the gravy boat (which has a pour spout)-- and because of that, I decided to get a commercial sweet & sour sauce as an option. I will probably serve it in the cream pitcher. I doubt I’ll be serving coffee or tea. Not planning on it, and doubt anyone will want caffeine at that hour on a school night. If someone asks for it, I can give people K-pods of coffee, and make cups of tea in the microwave. My mother would have conniptions if she knew, but Oh well.
We had to warn them that my son had a potential exposure at school, and is e-learning this week. We went ahead and all got tested, and are negative. It won’t get him back into school early, because the rule is 10 days, negative tests notwithstanding, no exceptions. All that happened was in contact tracing when someone else had a positive test, my son came up as someone who had been closer than 6 feet for more than 15 minutes. They won’t tell us who, of course, but it’s probably someone who rides his bus. They have assigned seats this year to aid in contact tracing. There are not enough buses, not even by half, to let the students sit one to a seat, every other seat. They are masked, and one to a seat. Some routes have buses go through twice, with a wipe-down in between.
I guess you didn’t need to know all that. I just want to make it clear how unlikely it is that he is infected, and we did tell the neighbors and offer to postpone (8 days, after all), but they want to come tomorrow. The boychik has no symptoms whatsoever. The boychik will still be masked the whole time, except during the meal, when he will be on the opposite side of the table (more than six feet), or when he is in his room with the door shut.
So, we’ll be taking down the good dishes again. We used them at Thanksgiving, just for us, even though we don’t really celebrate it. It had been a year (Thanksgiving, 2019) since we took down the good dishes. Gonna use the silver too, just to do it. And the big menorah, that we hardly ever use, because it takes Shabbes candles, but we’re going to use the really nice candles I bought in Tsfat. I bought a shit-ton of them, and give pairs of them out as gifts, and use them on the holidays and special Shabbatot. I know you can buy them in the US online, but it’s cool that I was in the actual shop, there is greater variety than anywhere online, and they were way, way cheaper. It’s like $12 + shipping in the US. They were less than than per dozen in the shop.
If anyone actually read to the end of that, thanks!
We live by an apple orchard. I make applesauce every few weeks. I peel and core apples, put them in the crock pot on “low” for 8-10 hours.
If the applesauce is being served as a condiment, I then increase the temperature and cook the sauce down until it is a thick, sweet, sauce.
I’m not sure my mother knew to do that. Nor that she had the time, or wished to peel and core that many apples. I think she’d rather just put sugar on the table. Besides, we did have a couple of diabetics in the family, who could eat a little of the applesauce with saccharine in it. I remember them measuring out what they could eat with my mother’s measuring cup. It was years before I realized why they were doing that.
I’m now scouring Uber Eats to see if I can find latkes…
I’m not Jewish and, therefore, have little to add except;
I have had real latkes maybe once in my whole life. But I’m pregnant and now really craving some! I don’t even know how to make them. Do Jewish grandmothers sell them out of their trunks like the Abuelas used to do with tamales? (I live in Michigan now, no Abuelas with tasty fresh tamales wrapped in newspaper here.)
That’s us. I think my mother’s was the same, but it certainly describes my wife’s. With sour cream and apple sauce. Let me just add that for my mother sour cream and not sugar or syrup was the topping for French toast.
I will ask my wife if she ever considered grinding carrots or parsnip and come back she did.
Those ARE pretty candles. But I like to use small candles for Hannukah, that will burn out on their own by the end of a festive meal.
I doubt that; many Jewish grandmothers don’t even know how to open the trunk.
However, they are very easy to make. You do have to grate potatoes, and chop onions, but if you just want a few for yourself, it won’t take long.
A cup of shredded potato makes about 5. You need a tablespoon of onion for each cup of potato. If you have a food processor, you can grate them in that. I personally prefer the finer grate, but most people use the larger one.
You need one tablespoon of flour for each cup of potato. Some people will say it must be matzah meal, because it binds better, but the best binder of all is bread flour. If you want to be really sure, add a quarter teaspoon of high gluten flour, or a very small amount of xanthan gum, if you have it.
I put in a very little, but a little, baking powder, about 1/8 tsp for every two cups of potatoes. Most people don’t do this.
I don’t add much salt, but a lot of people do. You need a little for them to cook right, but for the taste, it’s better to let people salt them themselves, I think. Most people use about 1/2 tsp salt for every cup of potato.
You also need an egg for every 2 cups of potato. I’ve used vegan egg replacers, and had pretty good luck. Bob’s Red Mill and JUST egg work well, and don’t have a taste. Neat Egg works, but it has a taste.
It is important to wring the potatoes out first. Use a tea towel, or paper towels. If you have cheese cloth, you can use that.
I mix with bare hands, but if you have a stand mixer, you can use the paddle-- I’ve done this for really big batches.
I add a little grated parsnip, and paprika, but I don’t think most people do.
Most people fry in peanut oil.
Russet potatoes are popular, but I prefer a mix of Red potatoes and Yukon Gold. I don’t peel them, but that’s another weird thing I do. Most people peel them.
It’s really simple. I learned to do it by watching, and I never even measured the ingredients until someone asked me for the recipe, and I had to go look at what I did, and try to estimate how much of everything I was using, then make them once with measured ingredients to see if they came out OK. So there’s a high tolerance for error.
If you hate onions, and want to leave them out, I’m sure that’s fine. If you want to make them gluten-free, I’d guess you want to sub in a 1 1/2 tbsp of rice flour, 1/4 tsp xanthan gum & 1/2 tbsp starch for every 2 cups of potato. I make a lot of gluten-free stuff for my shul.
If you decide to make them, good luck, I hope you like them.
Well, they’re going to stay here for board game night (we do usually on Thursday, which is probably why they didn’t want to change the day). Lighting is like, 5pm here, although since it isn’t Shabbes, we can light later. We may light around 6pm, and they’ll stay till 9. That would be long enough for the candles to burn down.
Other nights, we’ll be using 1 hour Chanukah candles.
I put the shredded potatoes in a very fine sieve, and collect the liquid, forcing out every drop I can. Then I allow the liquid to stand for a bit, discard the liquid and reserve the sediment to add back.
This is what my dad used to do, except he just discarded the liquid, sediment all.
This looks like a weekend recipe for me. I will, however, give it a try and report back how it goes.
We do have a lot of family recipes that were passed down by watching instead of writing down. My great-grandmother sent an email to my mother after my mother requested the recipe for cherry goop. The recipe consisted of many phrases like “Add enough powdered sugar” and “You know what it’s supposed to look like.” In the end, I think she and I figured it out. I really treasure that email though.
Heh. The sediment is important, but I totally forget why. Guess what I’m going to make tonight? Apples and honey for an appetizer, too.
My recollection is that it often turned dark as it sat, and wasn’t very appealing.
Actually, I heard the originals were cheese, and this link reinforces what I have been told. wiki- latke
A nice little history of the latke here, including the cheese detail: What's a Latke, Really? - The Atlantic
Oh, interesting. My MIL gave us a hand-written cook book with family recipes and room for us to add recipes. It includes one we have never made for “grandma’s cheese cakes”, which could be described as a latke made with cottage cheese instead of potato. I wonder if it WAS originally called a latke.