December 16, 2022 • 25 mins
Latkes are the crispy potato pancakes associated with Hanukkah celebrations -- but they weren't always made of potato. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren get to the root of latke history (and the science behind making them the tastiest).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reeves and I'm Lauren vogel Bum And today
we have a classic episode for you about Latka's Yes, because,
as Lauren and I discussed at length, because this can
be a bit of a stressful time for us, for
a lot of people, not just us, we are entering
(00:30):
the holidays. Uh. And does that mean Tonka is coming up? Yes? Yes,
I oh man, I think the first night might be
Sunday as we record this. Uh, it's it's a distinct possibility. Well,
who knows when people are listening, Laura. Oh, well, there
see a good point at a point that we bring
(00:52):
up in this episode. We first recorded this episode in
December of Yah. Know, and I still haven't had any
lot You still haven't made you any lat because I
promised you in this episode so earnestly. And this might
actually be the episode where the idea of the bizarre
(01:17):
compilation of foods that we need to try came into being. Yeah. Wow,
So it's like four years of the making. Yeah dude. Well,
that's why it's gotten so out of hand is because
the list keeps getting longer. Yeah. Uh, so we have
(01:37):
a lot of work to do, clearly, um, one one thing,
so I was like googling latka news just in case
there was anything shocking that had come up, and and
and one headline that I saw did suggest doing them
in an air fryer. And I think that the whole
air frier thing had not really happened yet. So that's
(01:57):
so that's news. That's that's an you uh technology to
report on. Um. I haven't done this, but if anyone
has air fried a Latka, let me know how it goes. Yes, yes,
because I need to try some and Lauren and he
needs to make the air friarway is the way to
(02:19):
go because you know, we get a little nervous around
oil and hot oil specifically. Yeah, and that is like
the whole thematic thing. But but yeah, so I'm like
dubious that it will be like a real Latka, but
you know, I don't know. You're open minded, yea, you
have strong opinions. But still it's still a fried potato
(02:43):
at the end of the day. So it's true, which
is very comforting during these cooler and stressful perhaps stressful times.
Yeah yeah, heck or clearly going through it. But um,
but we had so much fun doing this, doing this
(03:04):
lodka episode, and so um let us let former Annie
and Lauren take it away. Hello, and welcome to Savor.
I'm Annyries and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking
about latka's. Yes, in classic Saver style. As we record this,
(03:29):
we're only a little behind Hanuka is only a few
days over over, but probably as you're listening to this week. Yeah,
or we're really early for next year. Oh see, that's
a nice way to look at it. That's good. Do
you have any latca experience? Annie, not a one? You've
never had a latka? Oh? I really am the worst jew. Okay,
(03:50):
all right, we're going we're going to fix this. I'm
going to make you some latica's. Um. I. Half of
my family is Jewish, my father's side. And although neither
my mother or there we're practicing anything we did. Um
My mom really liked to cook at home, and so
for Hanukkah we would like the manora and she would
make some latka's and uh so I remember growing up
(04:10):
going through that process. And uh but hey, let's talk
about our question. Let's answer it in fact what answers? No,
all right, well, we'll try, we'll try, We'll try. Lucas.
What are they, Well, laticas are a side dish or
(04:31):
sometimes a main dish that's recently traditional to serve at
Hanukah dinners. They're fried potato pancakes made usually kind of smallish,
like two or three inches across and maybe a quarter
to half of an inch thick. The classic recipe is
just shredded potatoes bound together with a little egg and flour,
seasoned with salt, pepper, and shredded onion, and then pan
fried in oil. And the result is a crispy, creamy,
(04:54):
comforting potato patty with these sort of like lace like
brown edges. And they're served with either apple sauce or
sour cream or both. They sound delicious. They are. I mean,
it's fried potatoes. You can't really go that wrong. Did
you do the apple sauce and sour cream thing? Yeah,
both together because we didn't keep kosher, so we you know,
(05:16):
could have milk and meat in the same meal. It's
a whole thing. We'll get back to it in a minute.
But yeah, yeah, the blend of the apple sauce and
the sour cream is really important to my lifestyle. Because
it adds like the tang and the sweetness from the
apple sauce and then the cream nous of the sour cream.
You have to have like the right ratio and every bite. Oh,
you sound like a pro I mean to me, that's
(05:38):
a combination that sounds odd, but I bet it's really good.
It's sort of like a low key apple pie on
top of a fried potato. Alright, I am in um.
As far as the word goes, it is derived from Yiddish,
but it's roots beyond that aren't too clear. Something. It
comes from the Greek word meaning little oily thing. There's
(05:59):
a couple different theories here, like like that Greek word
in question um, a laddean comes from olive and could
also mean a little oil or a young olive tree.
Old Russian picked this word up as a ladya, and
I think that's where the concept of the oily thing
was cemented, because it led to the Ukrainian word old ka,
meaning pancake or fritter, and the Russian word latka meaning
(06:22):
pastry or confusingly, patch, I don't know. Language is weird
patch pastry patch. It's that like a cabbage patch, but
with pastries. Oh no, I went to a terrifying place.
Ever been to the cabbage patch Tree? I haven't, y'all
if Um, if you have ever gone through rural northern Georgia,
(06:43):
it is a northern Okay. Yeah, Yeah, there's a whole
cabbage patch like museum. It's a tree. From what I hear,
it's very upsetting. I don't want to deter anyone, but
I will say as a kid, it terrified me and
most of my friends. Um, it's like a big tree
all the Rafiki's tree in the Lion King, and there
(07:04):
are these cabbages growing with heads in them around the tree.
And then while you're in there, you'll hear like crying
baby coming from the tree, and a nurse will come
out and hold out this cabbage patch baby that was
just born from the tree. And then she's like, we
must name this cabbage patch doll. And someone usually shouts
at Rebecca. Anyway. Yeah, I mean it's a whole experience.
(07:33):
It's stuck with me. I can tell that I'm sorry
that I brought it up. It seems it's always back
of my mind, waiting to be recalled and horrifying once again. Well, um, yes,
so at any rate, Um, the first appearance of the
(07:56):
word lutka in English appears to have been our out.
Mm hmm. Now I can't stop think about Cabbage Patch Kids,
and I gotta know more. Maybe we can work it
into an episode on cabbage. But that's not what we're
talking about today, not necessarily. We're talking about ladas. To
make them, oh yeah, if you want to make them,
(08:17):
it's it's relatively simple. It's a little bit labor intensive.
The scientific secret you see to making crispy leccas or
hash brands for that matter, is to squeeze out as
much moisture as possible from the potatoes before you mix
them with the other ingredients, you know, like press them
between towels or preferably ring out your shredded potatoes in
cheese cloth, because that way, when you put the laticas
(08:40):
in the hot oil in the pan, you want your
oil to be like up around say three d and
fifty degrees fahrenheit, that's one seventy seven celsius, and water
boils way below that at like to twelve fareheight one
hundred celsius. Of course, so when you put your latcas
in the pan, the water in the potatoes is immediately
going to start vaporizing into steam. This creates a barrier
(09:01):
on the surface of the laticas, which prevents the oil
from browning them. The longer that the latcas sit in
the pan, the more oil they'll soak up, making them
more soggy than crunchy at the end. Not fun if so,
you squeeze out the excess water so they'll crisp up
nice and quick. Ah. Yes, this is a very important
step that I, um, I don't. I won't say I'm lazy,
(09:21):
but a lot of times I'm pressed for time stained
but it makes a huge difference. Last animade fried tofu
and it was amazing in it because I squeeze see
the minutes and like all those cauliflower recipes, cauliflower pizza crest,
you gotta get the water out of there. You do,
it's just going to be mush it will so yes. Um.
(09:45):
Also pro tip for frying cast iron is always the
best to do it and it holds heat so well.
So because you don't want your oil temperature dropping too much,
because that's gonna again prolong the fry. Also, make sure
that you don't crowd your pan. Also, it's going to
drop the temperature the oil lay to longer frying time,
and some cooks recommend using instead of flour as a binder,
(10:08):
a little bit of potato starch and motsa meal in
your batter to to bind the mixture together and to
keep it crisper um. You can even save the water
that you squeeze off of your potatoes, let the starch
settle to the bottom, Pour off the liquid, and add
the starch back into your batter. Hey, Latan numbers, I don't.
I don't have any Latan numbers. We're not easy to find,
(10:31):
surprisingly um, but I didn't want y' all to know that.
Every year, the University of Chicago hosts an academic Latka
Hamantash Debate in which notable scientists and scholars present arguments
over which food is better. If you don't know what
hamantash and are their triangular cookies that are filled with
like jam or whatever. They're sweet filling and they're served
(10:53):
at another Jewish holiday perum. This debate is held the
Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Every they serve like a bunch of
latkas in hamantash and and yeah they put on like
their full academic regalia, like it is a serious thing.
I love it, and all kinds of folks come and
speak like philosophers, religious historians, linguists, anthropologists, chemists, economists, and
(11:16):
mathematicians astrophysicists, who knew so much in such a small package. Yes,
I'm so tickled by it. Um there was. One of
the recent ones was debating which whether whether the Lucca
or the Hamantash was better suited for teaching under the
(11:38):
new common Core. I also have an excerpt for you
from from one Hannah Holburn Gray. Her piece was titled
the Latca's Role in the Renaissance. And here's here's a
quote for you. Although Machiavelli was a lot command, he
(11:58):
has to be analyzed like and touch. This, among other things,
makes him quite unusual. Machiavelli may never mean what he says,
that the external surface hides a different meaning within that.
He is a master of deception. That's deep. I know, right,
I didn't know he was a lot command. I don't
think he was. But you know, I'm not going to
say that everything that these people say during these arguments
(12:20):
is strictly true and accurate. Oh don't dash our dreams
before they've even began. It's nonetheless extremely entertaining. You can
look at videos of this from recent years. Anyway, this
this brings us to some latka history. But first it
brings us to a quick break for a word from
(12:40):
our sponsor, and we're back, thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you.
All Right, to understand where the latka comes from and
why it's a hanuka food, we need to go back
to old test at times. I would say most of
(13:02):
us know the story of the oil that lasted eight days. Yeah,
it goes like this for anyone who's unfamiliar or perhaps
needs a refresher. It was the second century b C.
And the small rebel squad led by one Juda the Maccabee,
drove their religious oppressors from their land and went to
then rededicate their temple, but most of the holy oil
(13:23):
for their lamps had been desecrated. As miraculous as their victory,
one day's worth of oil lasted eight hence the lighting,
hence the lighting of the Menorah for eight days. Yes, yes,
And this is one of the reasons that fried food
is a part of a lot of hanuka foods. The
oil thing, yeah, yeah, Also it's delicious, I would argue, yes, um,
(13:46):
But lacas have a more specific mention and at least
one of the versions of the Book of Judith, which
wasn't included in Jewish religious texts, but it was a
part of the Catholic and some Christian Bibles of Europe. Now,
Judah wanted to kill the head of the Assyrian army
that was invading her village, Hallofernyes, there's all of this
(14:07):
amazing artwork of Judith super stabbing Hallo Ferns and cutting
off his head really hard. There's some great lists of
like how good all the paintings are on the internet.
It's terrific. Look it up. Well spoiler alert indeed, Lord, Yeah,
so Judie is looking to kill this general. Got him
good and drunk on wine and full with salty cheese,
(14:29):
basically nice and sleepy. Um. Well, these might have been
cheese pancakes maybe important for this. And then she cut
off his head with his own sword. Yeah sorry, spoiler alert. Yeah,
I think the statue is probably over by now. And
then one way or the other, depending on which version
of the story you read, she showed his head to
(14:51):
the Israelites. Maybe she put it on a stick, you know,
and they then were able to launch a surprise attack
on the Assyrian army, or possibly the Syrian army saw
the head and we're like, okay, oh, never mind. But anyway,
the the the army left one way or the other,
and Judith kind of became adopted as the sort of
(15:14):
hero of this story. Yeah. Also got me in very
big trouble once because there is a perfect circle song
called Judith, and I was young and I didn't realize
the religious the tones of it. And as you know, Lauren,
I used to have a CD burning business back in
my youth, and I put that song Judith on a
(15:35):
random and he's mixed c D and it got back
to the parent of a friend of mine, who thought
I was making fun of religion. Um, I got some Wow.
My parents didn't care, but he would he wouldn't let
her attend any of my party for a while. Anyway,
(15:55):
That's that's my own burden to pay. But back to
this the story of Judith. Some historians disagree on the timing,
whether this betting some of those stories yeah, yeah, to
the tellings of the tale right, whether this beheading took
place around the Maccabi uprising, or if the two events
(16:17):
took place centuries apart. But the passing down of these
stories among Jewish communities cemented the latka or this like
cheese pancake thing as part of the Hanukkah traditions. Sort of,
we'll get back to that. Darry is also an important
part of Hanukah as well, in honor of Judith, and
for a long time that meant that the latca of
choice was the cheese laca. Yes, eating foods that were oily.
(16:41):
To harken back to this miracle of the oil, goes
back thousands of years a letter written by a rabbi
from the Ninth Centry ce. In it, the rabbi urged
his whole community to eat oily foods for hanak. He
was like, please, took this seriously. It's important. And the
latka itself comes into the equation a bit later. If
we go back to twelve and Italian Rabbi Ben Colonymous,
(17:07):
the rabbi had a list of what a perfect perm
feast entailed, and pancakes were on that list. I will
say that the story of Esther, which is part of Perum,
is also about a lady saving her land by like
super by getting a dude drunken killing him. So it
seems to be a thing. Yeah, so so there's so
there's a lot of like parallels in the Judith Ester stories.
(17:28):
So there's been some comparisons over time of celebrations involving
judithan involving Ester. Anyway, Yeah, okay, cool. Jumping ahead to two,
and the Spanish expelled the Jewish people from Sicily, and
a lot of them made their way to northern Italy
and they bought with them their recipes for pancakes made
(17:49):
with ricotta cheese. The Jewish community in the area readily
adopted them because they combined fried food and dairy. Yeah,
fried ricotta cheese pancakes were the norm for a long time,
right up until the eighteen hundreds. Poland and the Ukraine
experienced a series of crop failures that resulted in a
(18:11):
lot of potatoes getting planted by a degree of Russian
Empress Catherine the Great, who is using it as a
way to prevent mass starvation hopefully um. The potatoes were
inexpensive and relatively easy to grow, and they grew quickly.
Sary Nicholas the First really enforced this rule, and as
a result, potatoes became a mainstay in the Eastern European diet.
(18:37):
The Jewish population was growing rapidly in the area at
the time too, from one point six million Jewish people
in the area that is now Russia and Poland in
to over six million by nineteen hundred. Sends people out
a lot of potatoes on hand, and making a potato
latka was easier than making a ricotto latka. People started
switching over to the potato lodka. It also probably helped.
(19:01):
The potatoes are part of a that is, they can
be eaten with either milk or with meat. And this
is important because Jewish dietary guidelines called the Kosher Laws
forbid eating milk and meat during the same meal, or
even cooking and serving them using the same kitchen and
dining gear. Serving cheese latka's both means that you're limiting
your options for the rest of a meal. You can
(19:22):
have any meat with it um and that you have
to use either butter or vegetable oils for frying, because
if you fry a dairy thing with if you use
like schmaltz, yes and yeah, and speaking of and speaking
of these first potato lot because we're fried and chicken
fat a k A schmaltz, and we're called potato a
(19:44):
lot because but eventually they became so commonplace the potatoes
dropped and they just became known as vodkas. And as
we talked about in our butter episode, folks in Northern
Europe didn't have easy access to vegetable oils at the time,
like sesame and olive. Oils had to be imported at
a pretty significant expense to get them into Northern Europe.
So yeah, another vote pro potato. If what you've got
(20:07):
to cook in is schmaltz, then cooking potato is better
than cooking cheese. Right and file under episodes for a
later date because potato. Yeah, but relevant to this um.
Potatoes were actually pretty new to Europe, brought back by
those who made the journey to the New World in
(20:29):
the fift hundreds, and they weren't really popular at first.
They were bitter, I read that the texture was watery.
But one dude helped popularize them. French scientists Antoine Augustine Parmentier.
He survived almost solely on potatoes during his time as
a prisoner in Bavaria, and when he was released, he
(20:50):
became the pr person for the potato. He wanted everyone
to eat potatoes and thanks to his efforts eating potatoes
caught on France and then in the rest of Europe. Huh. Yeah.
I feel like if there was something that I was
forced to eat as a prisoner a lot, I wouldn't
(21:10):
be like, oh man, this food. Yeah. I think he
was really grateful that he survived the experience and he
thought like these things they sustained me. Oh, that's a lot,
that's a that's a lot. Nicer than my initial reaction.
Was Good for him, he took a he's sounds like
a glass half ful and half ful potatoes. We have
(21:34):
even more lat history for you, we do, but first
we've got a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Thank you. So as
we approached the late eighteen hundreds, in the early nineteen hundreds,
(21:56):
Jewish immigrants started bringing a lot Because with them to
the United States. One of the first American Jewish cookbooks,
Aunt Babbitt's cookbook Foreign and Domestic Recipes for the Household,
published in eighteen eighty nine, had a lot care recipe.
The American Mercury described a lot Because as luscious pancakes
made of greeted raw potatoes mixed with flour and shortening.
(22:20):
Very delicious indeed. And then food science came for the
latka in the nineteen thirties and Aunt Jemima the company
came out with a boxed vodka mix. Yeah. I don't know,
I don't know how that turned out. Chriscoe started pushing
to be the oil of choice when making a lot
because they had ads specifically saying like, the only oil
(22:44):
for your lot, because okay, sure uh. Six was the
first year that that University of Chicago Latka Hamantash debate
happened at the campus hell l House held it because
at the time, coming off of World War Two, open
display of Jewish culture were apparently discouraged in a lot
of academia, and they wanted to just give folks an
opportunity to celebrate their culture and to poke a little
(23:08):
bit of fun at the seriousness of academic life. Sounds
like a lot of fun to be had. The art
of Jewish cooking, which is sort of This famous American
Jewish cookbook came with this quote about potato LATAs, in
which the wives of the soldiers of the ancient hero
Judah mccabee hurriedly cooked for their men behind lines, but
(23:31):
this isn't precisely true, since there were no potatoes in
that region at the time. And I did read so
many articles about people who grew up thinking when they
would have a lot kid during Hanukkah that it had
like this long tradition and that was exactly what they
were eating. Yeah. Then, but it's sort of kind of newish. Yeah,
(23:52):
I mean, yes, way new as sure than that, way
new assure than that getting to the real truths goodness,
And that about wraps up our Latca episode. It does.
I'm very determined to try one fruitcake and latka before
(24:14):
the end of the year. I have a very strange party,
but it'll be great, It'll be well. And also, I mean, like,
I don't know, I feel like to really I need
to do this aged fruitcake thing. Oh yeah, so it
would be like next year when we're eating it. Yeah, okay,
anyway we can light it on fire. Yes, And that
(24:38):
brings us to the end of this classic episode. We
hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed
doing it, that it maybe bought you some reprieve, some joy.
And one of the funny things is, right before we
did this, we were looking up lot canows as you said, Lauren,
and a lot of it was just recipes right, and
(25:00):
there was like a Kimchi one. There was one from
Rachel Ray that you were like, no, but I would
love As always, listeners, if you have any recipes, any tips,
anythings we should try that would be fantastic. You take
it into account, even if we're slow folks. Yes, we
file everything away, we do. We do. Uh So if
(25:25):
you would like to email us, you can or email
us hello at saber pod dot com. We are also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Saver is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, you can go to
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
(25:45):
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reeves and I'm Lauren vogel Bum And today
we have a classic episode for you about Latka's Yes, because,
as Lauren and I discussed at length, because this can
be a bit of a stressful time for us, for
a lot of people, not just us, we are entering
(00:30):
the holidays. Uh. And does that mean Tonka is coming up? Yes? Yes,
I oh man, I think the first night might be
Sunday as we record this. Uh, it's it's a distinct possibility. Well,
who knows when people are listening, Laura. Oh, well, there
see a good point at a point that we bring
(00:52):
up in this episode. We first recorded this episode in
December of Yah. Know, and I still haven't had any
lot You still haven't made you any lat because I
promised you in this episode so earnestly. And this might
actually be the episode where the idea of the bizarre
(01:17):
compilation of foods that we need to try came into being. Yeah. Wow,
So it's like four years of the making. Yeah dude. Well,
that's why it's gotten so out of hand is because
the list keeps getting longer. Yeah. Uh, so we have
(01:37):
a lot of work to do, clearly, um, one one thing,
so I was like googling latka news just in case
there was anything shocking that had come up, and and
and one headline that I saw did suggest doing them
in an air fryer. And I think that the whole
air frier thing had not really happened yet. So that's
(01:57):
so that's news. That's that's an you uh technology to
report on. Um. I haven't done this, but if anyone
has air fried a Latka, let me know how it goes. Yes, yes,
because I need to try some and Lauren and he
needs to make the air friarway is the way to
(02:19):
go because you know, we get a little nervous around
oil and hot oil specifically. Yeah, and that is like
the whole thematic thing. But but yeah, so I'm like
dubious that it will be like a real Latka, but
you know, I don't know. You're open minded, yea, you
have strong opinions. But still it's still a fried potato
(02:43):
at the end of the day. So it's true, which
is very comforting during these cooler and stressful perhaps stressful times.
Yeah yeah, heck or clearly going through it. But um,
but we had so much fun doing this, doing this
(03:04):
lodka episode, and so um let us let former Annie
and Lauren take it away. Hello, and welcome to Savor.
I'm Annyries and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking
about latka's. Yes, in classic Saver style. As we record this,
(03:29):
we're only a little behind Hanuka is only a few
days over over, but probably as you're listening to this week. Yeah,
or we're really early for next year. Oh see, that's
a nice way to look at it. That's good. Do
you have any latca experience? Annie, not a one? You've
never had a latka? Oh? I really am the worst jew. Okay,
(03:50):
all right, we're going we're going to fix this. I'm
going to make you some latica's. Um. I. Half of
my family is Jewish, my father's side. And although neither
my mother or there we're practicing anything we did. Um
My mom really liked to cook at home, and so
for Hanukkah we would like the manora and she would
make some latka's and uh so I remember growing up
(04:10):
going through that process. And uh but hey, let's talk
about our question. Let's answer it in fact what answers? No,
all right, well, we'll try, we'll try, We'll try. Lucas.
What are they, Well, laticas are a side dish or
(04:31):
sometimes a main dish that's recently traditional to serve at
Hanukah dinners. They're fried potato pancakes made usually kind of smallish,
like two or three inches across and maybe a quarter
to half of an inch thick. The classic recipe is
just shredded potatoes bound together with a little egg and flour,
seasoned with salt, pepper, and shredded onion, and then pan
fried in oil. And the result is a crispy, creamy,
(04:54):
comforting potato patty with these sort of like lace like
brown edges. And they're served with either apple sauce or
sour cream or both. They sound delicious. They are. I mean,
it's fried potatoes. You can't really go that wrong. Did
you do the apple sauce and sour cream thing? Yeah,
both together because we didn't keep kosher, so we you know,
(05:16):
could have milk and meat in the same meal. It's
a whole thing. We'll get back to it in a minute.
But yeah, yeah, the blend of the apple sauce and
the sour cream is really important to my lifestyle. Because
it adds like the tang and the sweetness from the
apple sauce and then the cream nous of the sour cream.
You have to have like the right ratio and every bite. Oh,
you sound like a pro I mean to me, that's
(05:38):
a combination that sounds odd, but I bet it's really good.
It's sort of like a low key apple pie on
top of a fried potato. Alright, I am in um.
As far as the word goes, it is derived from Yiddish,
but it's roots beyond that aren't too clear. Something. It
comes from the Greek word meaning little oily thing. There's
(05:59):
a couple different theories here, like like that Greek word
in question um, a laddean comes from olive and could
also mean a little oil or a young olive tree.
Old Russian picked this word up as a ladya, and
I think that's where the concept of the oily thing
was cemented, because it led to the Ukrainian word old ka,
meaning pancake or fritter, and the Russian word latka meaning
(06:22):
pastry or confusingly, patch, I don't know. Language is weird
patch pastry patch. It's that like a cabbage patch, but
with pastries. Oh no, I went to a terrifying place.
Ever been to the cabbage patch Tree? I haven't, y'all
if Um, if you have ever gone through rural northern Georgia,
(06:43):
it is a northern Okay. Yeah, Yeah, there's a whole
cabbage patch like museum. It's a tree. From what I hear,
it's very upsetting. I don't want to deter anyone, but
I will say as a kid, it terrified me and
most of my friends. Um, it's like a big tree
all the Rafiki's tree in the Lion King, and there
(07:04):
are these cabbages growing with heads in them around the tree.
And then while you're in there, you'll hear like crying
baby coming from the tree, and a nurse will come
out and hold out this cabbage patch baby that was
just born from the tree. And then she's like, we
must name this cabbage patch doll. And someone usually shouts
at Rebecca. Anyway. Yeah, I mean it's a whole experience.
(07:33):
It's stuck with me. I can tell that I'm sorry
that I brought it up. It seems it's always back
of my mind, waiting to be recalled and horrifying once again. Well, um, yes,
so at any rate, Um, the first appearance of the
(07:56):
word lutka in English appears to have been our out.
Mm hmm. Now I can't stop think about Cabbage Patch Kids,
and I gotta know more. Maybe we can work it
into an episode on cabbage. But that's not what we're
talking about today, not necessarily. We're talking about ladas. To
make them, oh yeah, if you want to make them,
(08:17):
it's it's relatively simple. It's a little bit labor intensive.
The scientific secret you see to making crispy leccas or
hash brands for that matter, is to squeeze out as
much moisture as possible from the potatoes before you mix
them with the other ingredients, you know, like press them
between towels or preferably ring out your shredded potatoes in
cheese cloth, because that way, when you put the laticas
(08:40):
in the hot oil in the pan, you want your
oil to be like up around say three d and
fifty degrees fahrenheit, that's one seventy seven celsius, and water
boils way below that at like to twelve fareheight one
hundred celsius. Of course, so when you put your latcas
in the pan, the water in the potatoes is immediately
going to start vaporizing into steam. This creates a barrier
(09:01):
on the surface of the laticas, which prevents the oil
from browning them. The longer that the latcas sit in
the pan, the more oil they'll soak up, making them
more soggy than crunchy at the end. Not fun if so,
you squeeze out the excess water so they'll crisp up
nice and quick. Ah. Yes, this is a very important
step that I, um, I don't. I won't say I'm lazy,
(09:21):
but a lot of times I'm pressed for time stained
but it makes a huge difference. Last animade fried tofu
and it was amazing in it because I squeeze see
the minutes and like all those cauliflower recipes, cauliflower pizza crest,
you gotta get the water out of there. You do,
it's just going to be mush it will so yes. Um.
(09:45):
Also pro tip for frying cast iron is always the
best to do it and it holds heat so well.
So because you don't want your oil temperature dropping too much,
because that's gonna again prolong the fry. Also, make sure
that you don't crowd your pan. Also, it's going to
drop the temperature the oil lay to longer frying time,
and some cooks recommend using instead of flour as a binder,
(10:08):
a little bit of potato starch and motsa meal in
your batter to to bind the mixture together and to
keep it crisper um. You can even save the water
that you squeeze off of your potatoes, let the starch
settle to the bottom, Pour off the liquid, and add
the starch back into your batter. Hey, Latan numbers, I don't.
I don't have any Latan numbers. We're not easy to find,
(10:31):
surprisingly um, but I didn't want y' all to know that.
Every year, the University of Chicago hosts an academic Latka
Hamantash Debate in which notable scientists and scholars present arguments
over which food is better. If you don't know what
hamantash and are their triangular cookies that are filled with
like jam or whatever. They're sweet filling and they're served
(10:53):
at another Jewish holiday perum. This debate is held the
Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Every they serve like a bunch of
latkas in hamantash and and yeah they put on like
their full academic regalia, like it is a serious thing.
I love it, and all kinds of folks come and
speak like philosophers, religious historians, linguists, anthropologists, chemists, economists, and
(11:16):
mathematicians astrophysicists, who knew so much in such a small package. Yes,
I'm so tickled by it. Um there was. One of
the recent ones was debating which whether whether the Lucca
or the Hamantash was better suited for teaching under the
(11:38):
new common Core. I also have an excerpt for you
from from one Hannah Holburn Gray. Her piece was titled
the Latca's Role in the Renaissance. And here's here's a
quote for you. Although Machiavelli was a lot command, he
(11:58):
has to be analyzed like and touch. This, among other things,
makes him quite unusual. Machiavelli may never mean what he says,
that the external surface hides a different meaning within that.
He is a master of deception. That's deep. I know, right,
I didn't know he was a lot command. I don't
think he was. But you know, I'm not going to
say that everything that these people say during these arguments
(12:20):
is strictly true and accurate. Oh don't dash our dreams
before they've even began. It's nonetheless extremely entertaining. You can
look at videos of this from recent years. Anyway, this
this brings us to some latka history. But first it
brings us to a quick break for a word from
(12:40):
our sponsor, and we're back, thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you.
All Right, to understand where the latka comes from and
why it's a hanuka food, we need to go back
to old test at times. I would say most of
(13:02):
us know the story of the oil that lasted eight days. Yeah,
it goes like this for anyone who's unfamiliar or perhaps
needs a refresher. It was the second century b C.
And the small rebel squad led by one Juda the Maccabee,
drove their religious oppressors from their land and went to
then rededicate their temple, but most of the holy oil
(13:23):
for their lamps had been desecrated. As miraculous as their victory,
one day's worth of oil lasted eight hence the lighting,
hence the lighting of the Menorah for eight days. Yes, yes,
And this is one of the reasons that fried food
is a part of a lot of hanuka foods. The
oil thing, yeah, yeah, Also it's delicious, I would argue, yes, um,
(13:46):
But lacas have a more specific mention and at least
one of the versions of the Book of Judith, which
wasn't included in Jewish religious texts, but it was a
part of the Catholic and some Christian Bibles of Europe. Now,
Judah wanted to kill the head of the Assyrian army
that was invading her village, Hallofernyes, there's all of this
(14:07):
amazing artwork of Judith super stabbing Hallo Ferns and cutting
off his head really hard. There's some great lists of
like how good all the paintings are on the internet.
It's terrific. Look it up. Well spoiler alert indeed, Lord, Yeah,
so Judie is looking to kill this general. Got him
good and drunk on wine and full with salty cheese,
(14:29):
basically nice and sleepy. Um. Well, these might have been
cheese pancakes maybe important for this. And then she cut
off his head with his own sword. Yeah sorry, spoiler alert. Yeah,
I think the statue is probably over by now. And
then one way or the other, depending on which version
of the story you read, she showed his head to
(14:51):
the Israelites. Maybe she put it on a stick, you know,
and they then were able to launch a surprise attack
on the Assyrian army, or possibly the Syrian army saw
the head and we're like, okay, oh, never mind. But anyway,
the the the army left one way or the other,
and Judith kind of became adopted as the sort of
(15:14):
hero of this story. Yeah. Also got me in very
big trouble once because there is a perfect circle song
called Judith, and I was young and I didn't realize
the religious the tones of it. And as you know, Lauren,
I used to have a CD burning business back in
my youth, and I put that song Judith on a
(15:35):
random and he's mixed c D and it got back
to the parent of a friend of mine, who thought
I was making fun of religion. Um, I got some Wow.
My parents didn't care, but he would he wouldn't let
her attend any of my party for a while. Anyway,
(15:55):
That's that's my own burden to pay. But back to
this the story of Judith. Some historians disagree on the timing,
whether this betting some of those stories yeah, yeah, to
the tellings of the tale right, whether this beheading took
place around the Maccabi uprising, or if the two events
(16:17):
took place centuries apart. But the passing down of these
stories among Jewish communities cemented the latka or this like
cheese pancake thing as part of the Hanukkah traditions. Sort of,
we'll get back to that. Darry is also an important
part of Hanukah as well, in honor of Judith, and
for a long time that meant that the latca of
choice was the cheese laca. Yes, eating foods that were oily.
(16:41):
To harken back to this miracle of the oil, goes
back thousands of years a letter written by a rabbi
from the Ninth Centry ce. In it, the rabbi urged
his whole community to eat oily foods for hanak. He
was like, please, took this seriously. It's important. And the
latka itself comes into the equation a bit later. If
we go back to twelve and Italian Rabbi Ben Colonymous,
(17:07):
the rabbi had a list of what a perfect perm
feast entailed, and pancakes were on that list. I will
say that the story of Esther, which is part of Perum,
is also about a lady saving her land by like
super by getting a dude drunken killing him. So it
seems to be a thing. Yeah, so so there's so
there's a lot of like parallels in the Judith Ester stories.
(17:28):
So there's been some comparisons over time of celebrations involving
judithan involving Ester. Anyway, Yeah, okay, cool. Jumping ahead to two,
and the Spanish expelled the Jewish people from Sicily, and
a lot of them made their way to northern Italy
and they bought with them their recipes for pancakes made
(17:49):
with ricotta cheese. The Jewish community in the area readily
adopted them because they combined fried food and dairy. Yeah,
fried ricotta cheese pancakes were the norm for a long time,
right up until the eighteen hundreds. Poland and the Ukraine
experienced a series of crop failures that resulted in a
(18:11):
lot of potatoes getting planted by a degree of Russian
Empress Catherine the Great, who is using it as a
way to prevent mass starvation hopefully um. The potatoes were
inexpensive and relatively easy to grow, and they grew quickly.
Sary Nicholas the First really enforced this rule, and as
a result, potatoes became a mainstay in the Eastern European diet.
(18:37):
The Jewish population was growing rapidly in the area at
the time too, from one point six million Jewish people
in the area that is now Russia and Poland in
to over six million by nineteen hundred. Sends people out
a lot of potatoes on hand, and making a potato
latka was easier than making a ricotto latka. People started
switching over to the potato lodka. It also probably helped.
(19:01):
The potatoes are part of a that is, they can
be eaten with either milk or with meat. And this
is important because Jewish dietary guidelines called the Kosher Laws
forbid eating milk and meat during the same meal, or
even cooking and serving them using the same kitchen and
dining gear. Serving cheese latka's both means that you're limiting
your options for the rest of a meal. You can
(19:22):
have any meat with it um and that you have
to use either butter or vegetable oils for frying, because
if you fry a dairy thing with if you use
like schmaltz, yes and yeah, and speaking of and speaking
of these first potato lot because we're fried and chicken
fat a k A schmaltz, and we're called potato a
(19:44):
lot because but eventually they became so commonplace the potatoes
dropped and they just became known as vodkas. And as
we talked about in our butter episode, folks in Northern
Europe didn't have easy access to vegetable oils at the time,
like sesame and olive. Oils had to be imported at
a pretty significant expense to get them into Northern Europe.
So yeah, another vote pro potato. If what you've got
(20:07):
to cook in is schmaltz, then cooking potato is better
than cooking cheese. Right and file under episodes for a
later date because potato. Yeah, but relevant to this um.
Potatoes were actually pretty new to Europe, brought back by
those who made the journey to the New World in
(20:29):
the fift hundreds, and they weren't really popular at first.
They were bitter, I read that the texture was watery.
But one dude helped popularize them. French scientists Antoine Augustine Parmentier.
He survived almost solely on potatoes during his time as
a prisoner in Bavaria, and when he was released, he
(20:50):
became the pr person for the potato. He wanted everyone
to eat potatoes and thanks to his efforts eating potatoes
caught on France and then in the rest of Europe. Huh. Yeah.
I feel like if there was something that I was
forced to eat as a prisoner a lot, I wouldn't
(21:10):
be like, oh man, this food. Yeah. I think he
was really grateful that he survived the experience and he
thought like these things they sustained me. Oh, that's a lot,
that's a that's a lot. Nicer than my initial reaction.
Was Good for him, he took a he's sounds like
a glass half ful and half ful potatoes. We have
(21:34):
even more lat history for you, we do, but first
we've got a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Thank you. So as
we approached the late eighteen hundreds, in the early nineteen hundreds,
(21:56):
Jewish immigrants started bringing a lot Because with them to
the United States. One of the first American Jewish cookbooks,
Aunt Babbitt's cookbook Foreign and Domestic Recipes for the Household,
published in eighteen eighty nine, had a lot care recipe.
The American Mercury described a lot Because as luscious pancakes
made of greeted raw potatoes mixed with flour and shortening.
(22:20):
Very delicious indeed. And then food science came for the
latka in the nineteen thirties and Aunt Jemima the company
came out with a boxed vodka mix. Yeah. I don't know,
I don't know how that turned out. Chriscoe started pushing
to be the oil of choice when making a lot
because they had ads specifically saying like, the only oil
(22:44):
for your lot, because okay, sure uh. Six was the
first year that that University of Chicago Latka Hamantash debate
happened at the campus hell l House held it because
at the time, coming off of World War Two, open
display of Jewish culture were apparently discouraged in a lot
of academia, and they wanted to just give folks an
opportunity to celebrate their culture and to poke a little
(23:08):
bit of fun at the seriousness of academic life. Sounds
like a lot of fun to be had. The art
of Jewish cooking, which is sort of This famous American
Jewish cookbook came with this quote about potato LATAs, in
which the wives of the soldiers of the ancient hero
Judah mccabee hurriedly cooked for their men behind lines, but
(23:31):
this isn't precisely true, since there were no potatoes in
that region at the time. And I did read so
many articles about people who grew up thinking when they
would have a lot kid during Hanukkah that it had
like this long tradition and that was exactly what they
were eating. Yeah. Then, but it's sort of kind of newish. Yeah,
(23:52):
I mean, yes, way new as sure than that, way
new assure than that getting to the real truths goodness,
And that about wraps up our Latca episode. It does.
I'm very determined to try one fruitcake and latka before
(24:14):
the end of the year. I have a very strange party,
but it'll be great, It'll be well. And also, I mean, like,
I don't know, I feel like to really I need
to do this aged fruitcake thing. Oh yeah, so it
would be like next year when we're eating it. Yeah, okay,
anyway we can light it on fire. Yes, And that
(24:38):
brings us to the end of this classic episode. We
hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed
doing it, that it maybe bought you some reprieve, some joy.
And one of the funny things is, right before we
did this, we were looking up lot canows as you said, Lauren,
and a lot of it was just recipes right, and
(25:00):
there was like a Kimchi one. There was one from
Rachel Ray that you were like, no, but I would
love As always, listeners, if you have any recipes, any tips,
anythings we should try that would be fantastic. You take
it into account, even if we're slow folks. Yes, we
file everything away, we do. We do. Uh So if
(25:25):
you would like to email us, you can or email
us hello at saber pod dot com. We are also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Saver is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, you can go to
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
(25:45):
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.