Why All the Oil and Cheese (and Potatoes)?

It seems a bit odd really, this mixture of cheese, thirst, decapitation, potatoes, oil, pancakes and joy. But as often happens, the more you look into something, the more sense it makes (often, not always). When asked to research latkes, I found that it did. Up to a point. But Yehudis (Judith) is amazing. I wish there was more space to tell her whole story. But then, it might be more meaningful to discover her yourself—-and in the discovery, look upon the magic of Chanukah in a completely different light.

The tradition of eating latkes (Yiddish for pancakes) on Chanukah derives from two events. First, foods cooked in oil commemorate the miracle of the Chanukah oil; second, cheese latkes recall the brave heroine, Yehudis, who helped save her people by slaying the vicious Greek general, Holofernes, (164 B.C.E.) with the help of a little cheese.

Holofernes had brought the Jews of Bethulia to the brink of death by seizing the town's only spring of water. The people grew desperate as they began to weaken from thirst. Then the beautiful Yehudis stepped forward and asked to see Holofernes.

Taken by Yehudis' loveliness and charm, Holofernes invited her to an al fresco banquet á deux. Yehudis declined to eat his food--it wasn’t Kosher, after all-—but she had brought her own, and a large wineskin to share with him. Charmingly, she plied him with salty cheeses, then as he grew more and more thirsty, offered him great quantities of wine to slake his thirst.

When Holofernes fell into a drunken stupor, Yehudis borrowed her host's sword and cut off his head. She calmly returned with it to Bethulia, where the stunned townspeople hung their oppressor's head on the wall.

When Holofernes' soldiers found his body, they were so demoralized that they fled in panic. The town of Bethulia was saved, along with the rest of Israel.

For many generations, Jews celebrated Chanukah by eating cheese pancakes fried in oil. So, make some latkes this Chanukah to keep the tradition intact—-and as you eat them with family and friends, tell the story of the great Jewish heroine who saved her people with a great deal of courage-—and a little cheese.

When and why potato latkes came to replace cheese latkes, no one seems to know, but our research revealed that they could not have been around for more than some 400 years. We welcomes any historical information on potato latkes from our readers.

Since its discovery by the western world in 1532, the potato has been blamed for everything from lust to leprosy. It is rumored that the Scots at one time refused to eat them because they weren't mentioned in the Bible. The Incas, on the other hand, thought the potato made childbirth easier and used it to treat injuries.

The Spanish Conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon in his journal "Chronicle of Peru" recorded the first information about potatoes in 1553. Although the conquistadors didn't find the gold they were seeking, they discovered a virtual gold mine in potatoes. Potatoes soon became standard on Spanish ships when it was observed that they helped prevent scurvy.

They were sold in Seville, Spain as early as 1573. At first, the strange tubers were fed primarily to livestock. Around 1620, the British governor of the Bahamas sent a gift of Solanum Tuberosum (white "Irish" potatoes) to the governor of the Virginia colony—-and the potato arrived in North America to stay.

Its introduction to Germany at this time helped popularize the potato among Ashkenazi Jews; in fact, Frederick the Great ordered his people (despite their suspicion of them) to eat potatoes as a solution to famine. Potatoes quickly became an integral part of the European diet—-and soon (we assume) they became latkes!