Hanukkah Celebrations Include Traditional Latkes
Potato latkes and beef brisket were on the menu to celebrate Hanukkah at the Jewish Federation senior lunch last week. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — All month, a small brass menorah — the nine-branched celebratory candelabrum used only during Hanukkah — with a red candle in the center and a blue candle in the far left holder, has stood on the ordering counter at Bagels Too bakery on North Street.
"I have it there so people who come in will know that Hanukkah is coming," proprietor Susan Gordon said.
Hanukkah, the eight-day Festival of Lights, arrived at sundown on Tuesday, the 25th day of Kislev, the ninth month of the Jewish lunar calendar. Jews all over Berkshire County have been lighting their own menorahs and celebrating with songs, games, laughter, dancing and — central to all Jewish holidays — eating, feasting on special foods.
Observant Jews celebrated at Berkshire synagogues and temples with their congregations.
The senior kosher lunch program served a Hanukkah meal. Rabbi Josh Breindel of Temple Anshe Amunim gave a delightful and informative program to the older adults, most of whom had been celebrating Hanukkah for about 80 years. They still learned a lot and laughed a lot after eating a lot.
There was a public Hanukkah celebration in the Berkshire Mall in Lanesborough geared mainly for children and presented by Chabad of the Berkshires. With entertainment, games, music and, again, lots of food, this time sweet as well as fatty.
All Hanukkah celebrations include lighting the menorah. One candle on the first night, two on the second night, and so on. Light and oil and fat define the festivities.
The holiday commemorates the miracle that one night's worth of holy oil burned for eight nights so the Second Temple in Jerusalem could be rededicated after the Jews won it and the city back from invading Hellenized Syrian armies in about 130 BCE.
It's really a much longer story of serious events with many characters. But for food's sake, I will fall back on the ever-applicable, "They attacked us. We defeated them. Let's eat!"
After nearly 2,000 years, Hanukkah has become a family-oriented holiday of frying latkes — pancakes, usually potato and onion around here — and doughnuts (sufganyot) and making pastries such as butter and cream cheese rugalach, little filled, rolled horns.
Children get Hanukkah gelt — gold-foil wrapped chocolate play money — to gamble with dreidels.
Jews from different areas of the world celebrate with foods appropriate to their countries. Since many Berkshire County Jews are from Eastern Europe and have similar traditions, latkes predominate here.
Potato latkes, that is, even though Hanukkah latkes were originally made of homemade ricottalike cheese.
A story for another time. With more Hanukkah recipes.
However, dairy foods play a big part in holiday foods.
You can eat potato latkes with cheese at Rouge, the French restaurant in West Stockbridge. Chef William Merelle is making caprese latkes this year. Untraditional but delicious.
"I know it's not traditional but it's fun," his wife, Maggie, said last week.
Chef Michael Ballon, owner of Castle Street Café in Great Barrington, makes his grandmother's traditional latkes only and always for Hanukkah. He said he will be making them through the end of the holiday but call ahead to be sure.
"Never tamper with tradition. It is frowned upon," Ballon said, emphatically.
Aura Whitman, former owner and chef of Café Reva in Pittsfield and now of Naturally, one of the shops at Berkshire Organics in Dalton, makes and sells both traditional and adventurous latkes.
"I'm making them for the eight days of Hanukkah," Whitman said. "I'm also making fresh applesauce and brisket and roasted chicken."
She will make latkes to order but they are in her grab-and-go cases as well.
"I'm making plain potato latkes as well as potato latkes with carrot and potato-butternut squash latkes," she said. "And, I've been toying with the idea of making purple latkes with these purple Peruvian potatoes I have," Whitman added.
For Ballon, Hanukkah latkes are only potato and onion.
"Holiday meals are more for their creation of old memories rather than innovation," he said. "The essence of holiday menus are traditions which are so old we don't always know where or why they started, but which nonetheless must be honored."
For Ballon, "One such tradition is the eating of potato pancakes at Hanukkah. One could be contemporary or cute and make them out of carrots or celery root, and they would taste good, but they simply wouldn't be in keeping with the spirit of the holidays."
Michael Ballon's Grandmother's Latkes Traditional hand-grated potato latkes with homemade applesauce on the menu at Castle Street Cafe in Great Barrington during Hanukkah. Serves 4 to 6.
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Susan Gordon's Traditional Potato Latkes
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Aura Whitman's Vegetarian Latkes Aura Whitman, owner and chef of Naturally in Dalton, spent many years in Israel as a child. She often includes parsnips or both parsnips and butternut squash in her potato-onion latkes. She uses mild white onions and a lot of them. Since she uses only vegetables, the proportions in her easy recipe are up to you. "I like to go heavy on the onions 'cause I like them," Whitman said. "I serve them with homemade applesauce and sour cream."
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