How Do Latkes Work?

Latkes (that is, fried potato pancakes) are nearly synonymous with Hanukkah today -- but they've only been around for a couple centuries. Learn how they developed in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/latkes.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here on the surface, latcas might
look like any other pan fried potato cake, but these
traditional holiday treats are so much more than a starchy
comfort food. Laticas have been a Honkah staple for at

(00:22):
least two hundred years and have roots dating back millennia,
but it took us a while to get here. Hanka,
of course, is the Jewish festival celebrating the miracle of
the Oil that lasted eight days. The story goes that
over two thousand years ago, after a small rebel squad
led by Judith mccabee drove religious oppressors from their land,

(00:43):
they went to rededicate their temple, but most of the
holy oil for their lamps had been desecrated. As miraculous
as their victory was, this one day's worth of oil
lasted eight Eating oily or fried foods to celebrate. The
holiday goes back to the eighth dred Ce at least,
but potatoes are native to the America's They wouldn't arrive

(01:05):
in Europe until the fifteen hundreds, and they weren't really
popular there until the seventeen hundreds, when a French dude
who practically lived on them during his stint in a
Bavarian prison promoted them as an inexpensive and hardy sustenance food.
So what were lucas made with until then? It turns
out ricotta and other cheeses. Okay. This is because sometime

(01:27):
around the twelve or thirteen hundreds, rabbinic discourse started linking
the victory of Judah over his oppressors with the fictional
tale of Judith's victory over her oppressors led by Holofernes.
She fed him salty cheese so that he had drink
too much and she could behead him. Lots of art
depicts the scene. It's pretty metal. Um So cheese was

(01:48):
becoming a traditional hannock of food around that time, and
then in the late fourteen hundreds, Spanish rulers in Sicily
expelled the Jewish people living there. They fled to northern
Italy and beyond and brought with them recipes for Southern
Italian ricotta pancakes. It turned out to be the perfect
cultural combination, and fried ricotto latcas were the norm in

(02:10):
Eastern Europe through the eight hundreds. During that time, a
couple of things happened that set the stage for potato latcas. First,
in Eastern Europe, potatoes were being planted as a sustenance
food where other crops were failing, so potatoes were cheap
and plentiful, whereas cheese was more expensive. And Second, okay,

(02:31):
we're gonna need to talk about Jewish dietary guidelines called
kosher laws. They forbid eating dairy products and meat products
during the same meal, or even cooking and serving them
with the same kitchen and dining gear. So if you're
making dairy based cheese latcas, that means you have to
fry them in either butter or a neutral fat like

(02:51):
a vegetable or olive oil. But butter was also expensive,
and vegetable oils could be even pricier because they slee
had to be imported. A popular cooking fat at that
time and place was chicken fat or schmaltz. You can't
cook cheese pancakes and schmaltz, but you can cooked potato
pancakes in it. Through the nineteen hundreds, the potato became

(03:15):
so synonymous with latka that you don't have to specify anymore,
though you can find lots of different recipes made with
different ingredients. The traditional kind today calls for grated potatoes,
shredded onion, egg, salt and pepper, mots of meal or
bread crumbs as a binder, and vegetable oil to cook
them in. You stir the batter together, ladle small scoops

(03:37):
into a hot pam about a quarter cup or sixty
million liters per scoop. Then pan fry the pancakes until
they're golden brown and lacy on the edges something like
four inches or ten centimeters across. You might eat them
with your hands in just a couple of bites, dipped
in or topped with apple sauce, sour cream, or both,
often as a side dish with Hanuka dinners. They're crispy

(03:57):
on the outside and creamy soft on the side, salty
and starchy and satisfying for the article of this episode
is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with cookbook author,
blogger and latca expert Amy Kreitzer back in twenty nineteen.
She explained that the basic latka is always good, but
that you can get creative. To quote, one of my

(04:19):
favorite toppings is just a little bit of cream, cheese
and locks and then some other bagel toppings like an
everything bagel, spice or some red onion. I've also done
a latca's eggs benedict for breakfast, and then recently I
just did fried pickles latcas. She does have more traditional
potato preferences, though her grandmother's go to the rest it.

(04:41):
She said they're the starchiest, they're cheap, and I think
they make the best Latka's. She would also use some
grated with onion and would grade it with the potato,
which helps keep them from browning. But to get your
latcas too crisp up appropriately in the pan, we must
turn to sign ants. You want to squeeze as much

(05:02):
moisture from your grated potatoes as possible before you mix
them with your other ingredients. Either press them between paper
towels or ring them out in a cheese cloth. That way,
when you put them in the hot oil in the pan,
they don't steam. Okay, You want your oil to be
up around three hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit, that's one
seventy seven celsius. Water, of course, boils all the way

(05:24):
down at two hundred and twelve fahrenheit or one celsius.
So when you put your latcas in the pan, the
water in the potatoes will immediately start vaporizing into steam,
which will create a barrier on the surface of the latkas,
preventing the oil from browning them. The longer the latcas
sit in the pan, the more oil they'll soak up,
making them more soggy than crunchy. At the end, you

(05:46):
squeeze out excess water from the potatoes so they'll crisp
up nice and quick. It also helps to keep the
pan hot by using a heavy pan that holds heat
well like cast iron, and cooking in small batches. And
one last lacca crisping trick, repurpose the potato starch that
you squeezed out. Kretzer said. One thing I do now

(06:09):
that I didn't do growing up is I saved the
starch from the potatoes while shredding them. I squeeze out
all the liquid, then let it sit for about ten minutes.
Then when you drain off the water on the bottom,
there's this white starch, which is actually potato starch. I
add that back for my lacas, which helps them stay crispy.

(06:31):
Today's episode is based on the article How lacas became
Honaka's favorite food on how stuff works dot Com, written
by Stephanie Vermillion. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Radio and partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and
it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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