9 Latkes – An Important Connection to My Family’s Jewish Heritage
Ruby Rothenberg
In my Jewish American home, food has always been central, but I had no idea where the recipes I learned growing up came from. I always thought I did not have any “family recipes” as my mother’s parents had passed away when she was a child, so when I got this opportunity to interview her about her foodways, I was thrilled. My interview with my mom, Nancy Rothenberg, on November 9th, 2024, showed me how my own family history is connected to Jewish and Jewish-American foodways, histories, and other cultural practices.
Nancy Rothenberg was born in New City, New York in 1963 and grew up in the suburbs of Manhattan and in Brooklyn, New York. Since high school, she has lived in much of the US, eventually settling down in Western Massachusetts when she had her only child, me. Nancy has three older siblings who are all close in age. When she was nine, her father sadly passed away and her mother died shortly after, so when referring to her childhood food history, she was referring to the time in her life when her parents were both alive. Both of Nancy’s parents were Jewish, she has a large extended Jewish family, and in her childhood, her Jewish and American identities mixed in deep and nuanced ways that affected her eating, cooking, and general life.
When I asked her more about this mixing of cultures in her childhood, her answers first tended towards health-centered concerns of her eating. She noted how her family tried to follow the US government’s health advice at the time and the general food trends of the country. She said that in the sixties, Americans were valuing meals that had a carbohydrate, a vegetable, and a protein, as well as the benefits of sitting down to eat as a family for each meal (Kekoa Foods, 2024; Rothenberg, 2024). While she has memories of adhering to these values, she also remembers how her family’s Jewish tradition mixed with them. In addition to following American food rules and trends, her family would buy all of their baked goods, challah, rye bread, and meats from New York Jewish bakeries and butchers, and she felt a strong connection to her Jewish culture when eating these foods. Both of Nancy’s parents were first generation Americans; her grandparents immigrated from Kiev, and what are now Latvia and Lithuania. She spoke about how her father felt connected to his family’s homeland when they ate foods like knishes, tzimmes, borscht, and pot roast.
To note further on her mixing of Jewish and American foodways, Nancy said that her family was “kind of kosher,” that they were “halfway assimilated into non-jewishness, into American culture” (Rothenberg, 2024). She explained more about this, saying how her family did not keep strict kosher rules in her household, but they did keep some. She remembers never eating meals that mixed meat and milk, but her dishes and utensils did mix. Her family never ate pork in the house, but when they went out to breakfast, she loved ordering bacon (JewFAQ, n.d.). For her family, it was more about maintaining Jewish tradition through food than adhering to the laws of the Torah. Nancy specifically remembers feeling connected to Judaism through eating everyday foods including: chicken soup, whitefish, bagels and lox, and black and white cookies.
After Nancy left her nuclear family when she was thirteen, she remembers losing almost all of her foodways. She was living in dangerous situations and was eating purely to survive. She did not cook for many years and lost a lot of her Jewish identity, not eating Jewish foods or observing Jewish holidays. When she met and married my other mom, Marla Brodsky, who is also Jewish, they wanted to raise me in a Jewish household. For my family, that mostly meant celebrating Jewish holidays and, just like in Nancy’s childhood, my own Judaism has been closely tied to my eating of Jewish foods.
One important dish for Jews is latkes. Latkes are fried potato pancakes that are eaten on Chanuka to celebrate the oil that was used to provide Jews with light for eight days after the destruction of their temple (Appell, 2024). Being a simple dish, latkes leave room for the creator to be imaginative and individualized, making alterations to the recipe, while still falling into the category of latke. Nancy remembers her childhood latkes as being plain. She said, “We just made ours plain. Just shredded potato, flour, egg, and onion, and LOTS of oil” (Rothenberg, 2024). She also noted how her family liked to dip their latkes in both applesauce and sour cream.
Although her childhood latkes were quite plain, latkes in my own life are definitely the opposite. Each year of my life, my parents threw Chanuka parties with their staple creative latke making competition. Guests would arrive with some vegetables and spices and get to frying! People always made latkes with sweet potatoes, white potatoes, Yukon golds, zucchinis, eggplants, and more, with versions that were sweet, savory, spicy, saucy, and everything else you could imagine. To me, these were all true latkes, and this experience shaped what I considered to be my own Jewish foodway. Similar with Johnson’s (2024) process of recreating and playing with a tomato sauce recipe, I experimented with various reiterations of latkes. According to Johnson, “[the] recipe is capacious and roomy and allows those who enter to change it” (Johnson, 2024, p. 81). This sentiment reflects perfectly how my own latke making experience has forever been shaped by the memory of cooking latkes with my community at these parties.
I chose to make my mom’s plain Yukon gold potato latkes. These latkes tie me to my Judaism, and while I miss my family back home, I have been able to stay connected to my Jewish roots by continuing to cook them at IU. Since freshman year, I have made these latkes for my roommates and friends and shared my Jewish tradition with many new faces who may have never met a Jew, much less eaten a latke. Over the years, this recipe has changed and been adapted by those cooking and enjoying it, but regardless, it is my family’s recipe and will continue to be for a long time.
Nancy’s Latkes
Ingredients
- 10-12 Yukon Gold Potatoes
- 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
- 3 Large Eggs
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 2 cups Canola or Vegetable Oil
- Sour Cream (for dipping)
- Applesauce (for dipping)
Equipment
- Grater
- Cheesecloth (or other cloth that will allow liquid to pass through)
- Frying Pan
- Paper towels for drying off oil
How to Prepare
- Prepare the potatoes: peel your potatoes and grate them into shreds. Then take a large handful of the potato shreds and place it in a cheesecloth. Wring the cheesecloth out over the sink, getting rid of as much water from the potatoes as you can. Repeat until all the potatoes are as dry as you can make them. (This helps them fry up crispier).
- Put your grated and dried potatoes in a large bowl and sprinkle just enough flour over top to lightly cover them. Add your eggs and salt and pepper. Combine the mixture with your hands. If the mixture is too dry, add a half or one more egg. If it is too wet, add a little more flour.
- Heat your oil in a pan until it bubbles when you add a drop of cold water. Once the oil is hot, take a small handful of the potato mixture and form it into a patty shape. Carefully lay the patty in the oil. Repeat until the pan is full of patties, but they are not touching. Cook for 2-3 minutes on one side, then flip and cook the other side. Once both sides are golden brown and the patties have hardened a little, transfer them onto a paper towel lined plate and dab with more paper towels to remove the excess oil.
- Enjoy hot! You can dip them in applesauce and/or sour cream or slater these on top!
References
Appell, V. S. (2024). Why do we eat latkes on hanukkah?. Reform Judaism. https://reformjudaism.org/learning/answers-jewish-questions/why-do-we-eat-latkes-hanukkah
JewFAQ. (n.d.). Kashrut: Jewish dietary laws. JewFAQ – Judaism 101. https://www.jewfaq.org/kosher_dietary_laws
Johnson, R. M. (2022). Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen. Pushkin Press.
Kekoa Foods. (2024). 1960 to 1979 – The Times They *Were* A-Changin. Kekoa Foods. https://kekoafoods.com/blogs/news/1960-to-1979-the-times-they-were-a-changin?srsltid=AfmBOoo2mpz9Y3iWIMsEKcxvvhRCmKgJzTdxdzQMHvqcnedGECR-_473
Rothenberg, Nancy. Interview on zoom. November 9, 2024.
