Winter is Coming! Wait, I meant Hanukkah is coming. And Chanukkah means latkes, right? Well, maybe. Sure, the tradition of jelly-donuts has gained a lot of traction, especially in Israel, but when we think of Hanukka, most of us think of latkes: shredded potato pancakes fried in (olive) oil. But is that really “the tradition?” Actually, no. Potatoes were only introduced to Europe in the late 1500’s CE, and the Channuka story dates back 1600 years before that, so what did we eat before then? Sure there was plenty of fried foods to harden our arteries more than Pharaoh’s heart, but one stands out—fried cheese. I apologize in advance to the lactose intolerant, but it’s fairly clear that centuries before people were eating fried potato latkes, they were celebrating Hannuka by eating fried cheese, and this was YEARS before the “Got Milk?” advertising campaign ever existed.
So the question remains, why cheese? It’s not like Judah Maccabee drowned Antiochus in greek yogurt (though wouldn’t THAT have been ironic!) And it’s not like there was only enough sour cream to serve ONE blintze on Shavuot, but somehow it lasted for eight blintzes! No, to understand the custom of Jews eating cheese on Hannukah, we have to go back to an apocryphal book of the Bible titled Judith. In the story, our heroine, Yehudit, of the 6th century BCE Israeli town of Bethulia, kills the evil general Holofernes after serving him some cheese. So now we connect Judith to Judah (Maccabee) and Holofernes to Antiochus, and it becomes obvious why Jews ate cheese on Hanukah, right?
Well….not exactly. If we look in the actual text (Judith 10:5) we see that “She gave her maid a skin of wine and a jug of oil. She filled a bag with roasted grain, dried fig cakes, and pure bread. She wrapped all her dishes and gave them to the maid to carry.” No mention of any dairy products there at ALL. So what gives? Why aren’t we eating fried fig cakes for Chanuka? (Note: Anyone who makes me fried fig cakes for Channukah gets a gold star.)
Well, we have to take another leap backwards 900 years to time of the Judges. In the famous story of Deborah we find ANOTHER woman killing another evil general. Here we meet Yael, who tricks the Canaanite general Sisera and crushes his head with a tent peg. It’s interesting to note that Yael is not specifically mentioned as Jewish, and is, in fact, married to a non-Jewish Kenite. But at LAST, dairy makes an appearance! In chapter 4, verse 10 of the book of Judges we read: “‘I’m thirsty,’ [Sisera] said. ‘Please give me some water.’ [Yael] opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.”
So finally we have this potentially non-Jewish woman offering milk to an evil Canaanite general and then killing him. This becomes conflated with a later Jewish woman killing a drunken Assyrian general. Finally, it further becomes connected with the story of Hanuckkah. Whew! What a trip! It’s enough to make you hungry for some fried cheese pancakes—or maybe some potato ones. In any case, there are as many culinary traditions for the holiday as there are spellings for Chanuckah, so don’t feel embarrassed for making those poutine latkes with parmesan gravy, just revel in the holiday and Happy Chanuka Hannukah Hanuqqah?. And a Happy New Year to all!