"A latke is nothing but a grated potato after its had its bar mitzvah"
The rabbi

Every nationality has its own favorite potato. Scandinavians like them boiled for breakfast …sometimes with herring…sometimes not. The Brits like them fried to a crisp with their fish. The Irish boil them with cabbage; the French scallop them with milk and give them a fancy name. The Americans love them baked with butter, sour cream and chives and cannibals eat them raw.

My mother grated our potatoes. She mixed them with eggs and onions and fried them in rendered chicken fat with grievenes. Sometimes, she put them in a casserole and baked them until they were crusty on the top and soft as mashed potatoes in the middle. Most often, she formed the mix into patties and fried them on top of the stove. When they were very brown, she put them on a cookie sheet and let them finish cooking in the oven.

We called them latkes.

Lots of people think they can make potato pancakes but one visit to my mother’s dining room table and convinced everyone my mama created the most exciting latke this side of the Negev. Everyone who loves latkes (and who on this earth does not?) has his own favorite condiment to enhance their exquisite garlic-chicken-onion flavor. I always sprinkle mine with sugar, my father liked applesauce, Uncle Sam preferred horseradish and my sister liked sour cream. My cousin Jessica insisted on apple butter and the dog liked his neat.

The day I walked down the aisle, my mother pressed a tattered paper in my hand and whispered,” You won’t believe how often this information will solve your problems”.

Right before my husband appeared on the altar, I glanced at the crumpled scrap in my hand. It was a recipe for latkes.

My mother was absolutely right. I used her recipe whenever I couldn’t figure out what to make for dinner, to stop an argument, to fill in at a potluck and to console myself when I was lonely. In fact, that recipe lasted far longer than the husband did. He vanished in two years due to acute indigestion, but my mother’s latke recipe is posted on my refrigerator still, the paper yellowed, the edges frayed, its directions strong and clear.

While anyone anywhere can enjoy a latke, I have always believed it took a Jewish cook to do it right. Other faiths use mashed potatoes and fry them to mush. They taste like a remnant from the Goodyear Company: no distinctive flavor, no onions, no schmaltz.

I will never forget my alarm when a young Italian fireman took over my kitchen and exploded my faith in the integrity of a Jewish latke. That was the night I learned that Jews may live to eat, but Italians live to eat well. And that makes all the difference. Anyone can follow a recipe for potato pancakes. If you smother the result in sauces and condiments you won ’t notice the ragged edges, the soggy middle, the uncooked bits of onion and clusters of pepper that didn’t mix in. A latke can only be considered a work of art if it is so bellisimo one eats it pristine from the pan. I considered this kind of perfection beyond human achievement until I invited a San Francisco fireman and his wife over for dinner. “I just love potatoes!” said his wife.

“Baked?” I asked

“Anyway at all,” she said. And then she paused. “But my Danny is getting tired of them mashed or boiled and I hate to fry them because that’s awful for our blood. Do you know a different way to make potatoes?"

“Indeed I do!” I exclaimed.” I will make you latkes.”

“Latkes?” she asked

“Latkes,” I said. “Real American Jewish Latkes with Romanian zest.”

The night of my dinner, I set out the potatoes, eggs, onions and a hand grater next to a large glass bowl. Natalie and her husband arrived at seven with a bouquet of flowers, three bottles of wine, a dish of pasta and two matching aprons. “Danny says he will make the pancakes for you,” said Natalie. “He loves to cook."

I shook my head. “He cannot possibly make a decent Jewish latke,” I said . “That boy is Italian."

Danny smiled at me. “I am a fireman, Lynn Ruth,” he said. “We can do anything a woman can do and we do it better.”

“Not EVERYTHING, young man,” I said. “And especially not latkes.”

”Watch,” he said.

He glanced at the recipe tacked on the refrigerator and pulled out my cutting board. “Hand me those potatoes,” he said.

Before I could wrestle the grater from his hand, he had all the vegetables grated, the peelings stowed in the garbage and the board cleaned for the next task. “What now?” he asked.

“You need to squeeze out all the liquid or they won’t fry,” I said. “It takes a LOT of strength.”

Natalie smiled. “Danny works out ever morning,” she said. “He’s up to the task.”

“So I see,” I said.

I handed Danny a jar of rendered chicken fat. “This is schmaltz,” I said. “You fry the pancakes in it.”

“SCHMALTZ?” he said. “That is chicken fat and very unhealthy. Where is your olive oil?”

“Jews don’t cook with olive oil,” I said. “We use…”

“More’s the pity,” he said. “Find me some olive oil.”

He rummaged in the bottom of my cabinet and found an unopened bottle of olive oil behind three boxes of Mueller’s noodles and a can of Heinz’s tomato paste. “You must come to the firehouse for a culinary lesson,” he said. “We know how to do meals to die for. People who use this stuff only cook.”

“Olive oil is not schmaltz,” I said. “Your latke will be limp as a disappointed lover.”

“Trust me,” he said. “Italians live on olive oil and there is nothing limp about THEM, is there Natalie?”

“You mind your pancakes,” said Natalie and indeed he did.

That amazing boy fried thirty-five pancakes in oil in less than ten minutes, pressed them dry on a paper towel and browned them in the oven before I managed to toss the salad. “Should I get out the condiments?” I asked but Danny smiled the smile of a winning chef. “Taste them first,” he said. “I’ll bet they won’t need a thing.”

“ALL potato pancakes need SOMETHING to enhance their flavor,” I said. But the minute I inhaled the fragrance of Danny’s batch of potato latkes I knew my mother had met her match. The aroma was heavenly, the texture like velvet and the flavor? Oh my God! Who can find words for flavor like that!”

My eyes filled with tears. “If my mother were alive today, she would be crushed. She always believed her potato pancakes were blue ribbon productions, but these… these … these are celestial wonders.”

Danny patted my hand. “Rest easy, Lynn Ruth,” he said. “Your mother’s latkes are still the best of their kind. The pancakes you are eating now aren’t latkes at all. They are frittata patatas …the Italian substitute for pasta.”

Natalie frowned. “I don’t remember my grandma making anything called frittata patata,” she said.

“Finish your wine, honey and it’ll come back to you.”

And it did.


"Latkes are too good to be ethnic"
The Pope