As a child, I was reared near the Lender family, heirs to the bagel empire spawned in my hometown, New Haven, Connecticut. Not satisfied with the a$toni$hing $ucce$$ of their local bakeries, the wonders of their split level ranch home, its iron jockeys with actual horses, their bagel shaped pool, round island for tanning in the middle, just by cranking out those old-fashioned crunchy bagels that fight your mouth back, the Lenders made bagels very big business. They launched such innovations as the frozen bagel in a plastic bag in your supermarket frozen foods section, the cinnamon raisin, the pumpernickel, the green for St. Patrick's Day.
They made the bagel a household word, but in this very effort may have assimilated and Americanized it beyond recognition. What a paradox. In America you can't even mess with state flowers, but an entire culture's cuisine can be bastardized and nobody even kvetches! Many second and third generation Ameri-Jews cannot recall what an aboriginal bagel feels like amidst all this infernal creativity. In recent years, in "we're so hip we're nutty" Los Angeles, I've even had cream cheese flavored bagels, much like sour cream potato chips, for those too lazy or busy to combine two distinct ingredients by themselves.
In America you can't even mess with state flowers, but an entire culture's cuisine can be bastardized and nobody even kvetches!
I fear the same blurry fate for the purity of the potato latke. At this holiday time of year, hankering for the foods of my youth, I went searching my area for that familiar flat, latticed little golden brown crunch-orama, fried in a generous batch of oil (Chanukah being a celebration of oil), served with homemade apple sauce or fresh sour cream--those perfect patties that my mother faithfully recreated from her mother's recipe.
You risk all nostalgia and sentiment when you order your precious Jewish childhood comfort foods from L.A.'s melting pots. After all, this is the land where they put pineapple on pizzas. You could get digestive amnesia, eating what people pass off as Jewsine around here, and bury the real thing in the recesses of your baffled palate. See, a lot of our Jewish deli kitchens in Los Angeles are manned by those lovely folks from the Southern Americas, gracing your latkes with jalapeños and red pepper flakes while our Jewish brethren are at the door welcoming you, at the cash registers charging you.
I visited one famous 'mother of's' kosher eatery, decorated with her son's film posters brazenly staring you down on you like the Almighty Himself. Here I found an improvisation on the theme: blackened strands around a peppery pudding-y mound of oily potato--Cajun? I think not. More like the home fries fabricated from frozen shredded potato product found in highway diners, with a bit too much pepper.
Some other local delicatessens' were very spicy (cayenne?), some dicey (the potatoes cubed rather than grated?), some more like fritters which could have contained anything from fish to farm animals, so unrecognizable was a potato flavor amidst the puffery. One local noshery's pancakes were like Egg Foo Young, and I glanced in the kitchen to see affable Asian folks preparing them with their blessing from the Far East, corn starch. Rumor has it that the best latkes in this area are at a deli called Brent's, located on the earthquake fault line in our Valley city, Northridge, so God knows how long one will be able to get them. Eating them is risky enough, as evidenced by the fact that the folks who made me the best latkes have all passed on.
Getting yourself invited to the home of someone whose ancestors came over on the Ellis Island is your best bet. Although, granted, I have been to parties at kosher homes, at which the noodle kugles were topped with cornflakes, having been made by the imported nanny earlier that day. Is nothing sacred in the revolutionary, tradition hating West anymore?! In the words/lyrics of Jim Hammerstein, son of Oscar, from his tune "Delicatessen:"
"Have you ever had matzoh ball soup on the Loop?
Its taste is both foul and acidic.
Go try chicken liver beyond the Hudson River
It's absolutely Anti-Semitic!"
Forgive my rant. I'm a new agey kind of gal, but some things are better kept "old school." So this Chanukah, let's "keep it real" and make our latkes at home as a celebration of the Old World ways. And let's not get carried away with extravagant gift giving either – I'm sure they didn't do that in the shtietel. Instead, as my gift to you, here's our mother's mother's recipe for the quintessential, Eastern European potato pancake for two, lovingly scribed on greasy pink paper by my sister Norma. Happy Chanukah!
2 large mature potatoes
1 t. onion
1 egg, well beaten
1/4 t. salt
1/4 –1/2 t. baking powder
2 T. all purpose flour
Crisco or Oil
- Peel potatoes and grate finely into a bowl of cold water.
- Wet onion piece first so you don't cry too much. Grate it well in another bowl. Mix with eggs, salt and flour.
- Drain potatoes and press out the liquid with the bottom of a cup. (Don't forget to wash the bottom of the cup-- you always forget!)
- Stir potatoes into batter and mix well.
- Heat 1/2 inch oil (from Crisco if you can find it) in a 10 inch skillet on a low flame for a couple minutes. Put a drop of water in and if it bounces, the oil is hot enough. Drop batter by tablespoons into hot oil, from close by so it doesn't splash back or spritz in your pretty punim.
- Flatten into 3 inch pancakes and fry slowly until golden brown and crisp. Turn and brown on the other side.
- Arrange on paper on a nice plate. Serve with sour cream or applesauce. Essen!
(15) Anonymous, January 8, 2008 9:26 AM
cultural gastronomy doesn't assimilate
As someone who also knew of the Lenders American dreamlike lifestyle, it should be noted that as a family and as Jews the Lenders were always demonstrative in their Jewishness and support of Israel. Also their bagels have enhanced the American culinary saucepan not taken from the Jewish saucepan.
(14) Anonymous, December 10, 2007 3:52 AM
I can appreciate Melanie Chartoff's feelings and I must admit that we have participated in this assimilation. Because making appplesauce took so much time, I served jar applesauce with our latkes when our children were little.
For my son, now grown, jar applesauce is an integral part of his Chanukah memories. Additionally, the latke recipe in "LA Lament" is itself an assimilated item. Again because of the time, my husaband, our Latke King,
doesn't grate potatoes by hand. He uses our electric food shredder (a
wedding present that is now over 40 years old). Thirdly, Crisco is a 20th century chem lab creation that came into use in 1911. Before that kosher
food was most likely fried in rendered chicken fat or olive oil.
(13) Mosheh Wolfish, December 5, 2007 12:46 PM
It's the box, stupid! (ala Bill Clinton)
I am reminded of the little boy who got a tricycle as a gift. He was so very excited by the gift. His parents were so happy that he was so happy. He opened the box, pushed aside the tricycle and climbed into the box and played all sorts of imaginary games. He was delighted with the great BOX that his parents got him. Dear Melanie, the food is just the box. You're right, the box is very, VERY nice. But still, it's just the box. Don't throw away the real present that is in the box.
Happy Chanukah!
(12) DD, December 5, 2007 12:36 PM
The origin of the bagel -surprising
I just finished reading a collection of letters written by a sage of almost a thousand years ago, R'Ovadia MiBartenura, who wrote of his travels and experiences on his way to the Holyland. He described the bread in Egypt as round bread boiled in water and very soft, not like the hard bread baked in ovens that he was used to from Italy. WE're all mixed up -vive la difference!
(11) Ima of Ima's Kitchen, December 5, 2007 11:20 AM
We've Come a Long Way!
I have the funniest memory of a 3rd grade public school experience: the teacher asked us kids to think of rhyming words. The word "box" was up on the board. When the kids were stumped after the usual "clocks," "socks," "locks" and "rocks," I timidly raised my hand and offered "LOX."
The teacher: We put that up already - locks.
Me: NO, I think this is spelled L-O-X
Teacher (giving me one of the oddest looks ever received): there's no such word. No made up words, please.
Me (doubting my sanity. Didn't our family just sit down to a brunch that included this delicassy last Sunday?!): I think it's a kind of a food. (Then, to be helpful): I think you eat it with bagels.
Teacher: Bay what?
Getting worse...
Me: You know (does she??)- Bagels and Herring and stuff?
Teacher: (A strange look to beat the last one) Honey, I'm not sure any of this is real. I'll write it down and ask someone and let you know tomorrow.
FYI, this was Ohio, USA in the mid-60's. Maybe we have something to thank the Lenders for, even though their recipe might not exactly be Lower East Side.
By the way, I have an assortment of "latke" recipes ranging from apple to salmon, and it's all ok because the custom isn't the potatoes, it's using olive oil. So, no, Crisco,or even schmaltz won't do it for Chanukah, even though it may be delish and quite sentimental. AS for Rebbecca's comments about true Jewish food: WE are a Galut nation. All of our food, whether filled with potatoe or filled into grape leaves, is borrowed from our local host cultures throughout the ages. So we can enjoy them all and feel somehow authentically Jewish. so, let the Mexican cooks add Jalopeno, as long as it's Kosher!
My latkes, by the way, are strictly potatoes, eggs, onions, salt & oil. No matza meal, flour or baking powder. It works for my folks!
(10) Anonymous, December 5, 2007 7:41 AM
use a potato kugel recipe
I use my good old fashioned potato kugel recipe for latkes, just squeeze out the liquid and add a drop of matzo meal or flour. So it's potatoes, eggs, oil, salt, black pepper.
(9) Max Gersenson, December 4, 2007 11:21 PM
In order to be the real thing...
Those modern things masquerading as bagels are merely ordinary donut shaped hunks of "goyishe" bread with "goyishe" flavorings. The real McCoy are water bagels without additives... or with poppy seeds. Water bagels are made with a bagel dough and boiled in water before baking. They are firm with a crunchy surface not soft (roll like)... and with a heavenly aroma and flavor. YES I MIGHT KILL FOR ONE.
And latkes...heaven forbid that they be fried in oil or Crisco (a pork product). They should be fried in schmaltz, which is chicken fat rendered from a chicken, as any fool can plainly deduce, and which can no longer be obtained in the market place but must be made at home by rendering the fat from a nice plump chicken not one of those genetically "improved" ones which taste like dehydrated rectal droppings. When latkes are fried in schmaltz they have crisp edges and taste like heaven on earth....Just like my momma used to make....and my bubba, bless them both.
(8) Jill K., December 4, 2007 7:59 PM
Annual Latke Festival
And that is why I host an "annual latke festival" at our house every year. I invite some friends and lots of family. No gifts allowed. We play dreidel with chocolate gelt for the pot, eat doughnuts, and make and eat latkes for hours. Several people take turns at the stove...none of this prepared in advance stuff. They're best hot and fresh - not reheated. After trying several recipes, I have settled on only using Joan Nathan's. When my kids were the only Jews in their elementary school, I went into each of their class rooms every year - complete with menorah & candles, latkes, sour cream, apple sauce, sugar (my husband's family's tradition), my electric fry pan, paper and plastic ware, as well as enough gelt, dreidels and playing instructions for every kid to take home. The kids still remember it fondly.
Happy Chanukah!
(7) miriam cohen, December 4, 2007 7:38 PM
not a great recipe
I beg to differ - no baking powder, more onion, 1 more egg, and 1 to 2 tablespoon of Matza meal, and absolutely no frying in Crisco - oil is the way to go, and salt and pepper to taste. Grating by hand is the best, but a food processor works if you don't puree it. I have been frying latkes for about 50 years now - no complaints from my family or friends.
(6) Rebecca, December 4, 2007 3:27 PM
Not funny, not Jewish, either.
If you really want to talk about authentic Jewish food, well, you've missed the mark by a continent! Bagels are a European food, not a Jewish food. Our Jewish ancestors, in Israel and the surrounding lands, many generations ago, did not eat bagels. They ate stuffed grape leaves, lamb, lentils and rice and pita bread. Not that I would ever push our Jewish foods on your ethnicity, but why do you have to assume that your European ancestry is the standard for Judaism? Moses, like my family, was a Semite. He didn't eat bagels. So, no more worries, Lender's bagels are just as Jewish as any others.
(5) Anonymous, December 4, 2007 1:04 PM
Her Mother's recipe as inauthentic as those who add cayenne
I read your column where you wax nostalgic over the demise of traditional foods like your mother's latkes. I, too, miss my mother's cooking as does every child who had a mother who was a good cook.
However, as an older woman who still makes latkes the old fashioned way (yes, I grate the potatoes by hand- I do not use a Cuisinart- the lament should not be over change but over taste. (and health)
Lender's may have helped the world discover and eat more bagels with their being frozen so they can travel and be stored in every grocery store; but they ruined the taste. My father would speak about how delicious even a stale bagel tasted in the old country and my father-in-law, who was a baker, knew how to make and bake a tasty product. Lender's frozen products and many of the newer things called bagels that are served today aren't worth eating unless, perhaps, toasted. I haven't looked at the ingredients so I cannot comment on the healthiness of the product.
If people try to change them by giving a little new cultural addition, if they are tasty- that is what counts. After all the history of the wandering Jews throughout the world was to adapt other peoples' foods but make them kosher and to our way of thinking, make the foods quite tasty.
Now about your mother's recipe. You might love it but that does not make it authentic to the Old World. Your mother adapted it to American products, an adaptation that is similar to those that you complain about. Crisco is an American product- Jews never had Crisco in the old county. So frying in Crisco is not authentic to the Old World. I doubt that Jews used baking powder in their latkes in the old world. I even suspect that the Jews in the Shtetl didn't use flour- here I might be wrong. I think that they used matza meal. I think that refined flour was an expensive item so that most of the poorer Jews in the Old World might not have had it in their pantry for a poor man's food like latkes.
So though your article was cute, it was really a segue into giving your mother's recipe. Still you should aim for accuracy even when trying to be clever.
(4) Anonymous, December 3, 2007 9:39 PM
Not only in-town!
Pardon me, but it doesent matter where you are from, just whos making it. My grandmother can make the best kreplach or kneidels or gfetle fish from scrach than anyone I know- and belive me, Im not the only one to say that. (By the way, sevral New Yorkers I know agree.) And my mother makes a super challa evrey week, for the past 25 years, non-stop. (Besides Pesach.) And again we havehad sevrel in- and - out of towners beg for the recipe. My mother is a 4th genaration Americian, and she grew up out of town. Also, both my mother and grandmother live in Dallas, Tx, for over a quarter of a century.
(3) Regina, December 3, 2007 3:11 PM
so true, unfortunately we are so weight conscious that everything really "original Jewish" cuisine won't be eaten by a lot of people because they are afraid of Cholesterol and gaining weight.
Because all of us are so weight conscious, health "nuts" we will not approve of all the "original, real, Jewish" food like Bubby made, because we are afraid to gain weight, add calories or raise our cholesterol. Even though our grand parents, ancestors in the "old" shtedle in Poland, Russia etc. ate it at lived a long life. Go figure.
(2) Jay, December 3, 2007 2:18 PM
Anywhere w/i 30 mile radius of NYC is the ONLY truly Jewish area in U.S.
Chicago shmicago.....the ONLY place in the U.S. with food remotely Jewish is w/i a 30 mile radius of NYC. Come to think of it, Chicago doesn't even come close to anywhere in the entire NE. I mean they probably slop some cole slaw on it and think that's gonna help. My grandparents were Russian and Polish too........were butcher's and deli people in NJ and NY......they'd plotz before eating that Chi-slop. Don't get me started on LA or Atlanta.....OYY
(1) Merle lynn, December 2, 2007 5:05 PM
Chicago is really Jewish...
My kids, raised in Chicago, and strong proponents of Israeli food, find everything in N.Y. yucky. They even hate East Coast dairy, which is served in the area around their Florida cousins house. All my grandfathers were Russian, my grandmothers, one Polish one Hungarian, step grandmother Lithuainian. The fights were wonderful.
Come to Chicago, you'll taste Jewish.