Why are latkes...

[Jenise]

...dipped in sour cream AND apple sauce?

Have I tried it? No. Do I want to? No.

I hope you mean "or", not "and".

Not sure why, maybe I can look it up. In my imagination, the choice of sour cream is simply that a lot of Jewish cooking consists of white foods with white foods on top of white foods (e.g., herring with onion, potato in dough a.k.a. knish). Also in my imagination, the choice of applesauce is simply that it is a white food that is sweet.

[Jenise]

No I did mean 'and', because I thought that was the idea. I've never been at the same table with this food, just heard others talk about it and just now a sales pitch for same had just shown up in my side bar. I make latkes but skip the dips.

I don't think I've ever seen anybody do both at the same time.

Ah, this makes sense: http://libraryladycooks.blogspot.com/20 ... cream.html

Short form: You can serve latkes with meat or dairy meals, and you need a corresponding topping. (The laws of Kosher say you can't mix meat and dairy.)

Latkes have Always been a favourite side dish since childhood but we never dipped them in anything. Then again sauces rarely appeared at the family table, with the exception of gravy with a roast meat.
Sour cream was an unknown entity and apple sauce might have been offered with pork except dad didn’t like fruit with meat.
We called them mock fish, for some reason lost in the mists of time, perhaps because they sometimes appeared alone as the main course, perhaps the night before payday on a bad week. Never seemed a hardship to us.
Bother , now I’m going to have to go make some.

[Jenise]

I don't think I've ever seen anybody do both at the same time.

I recalled last night that a friend with some Jewish heritage who observes some traditions and who posts everything they eat on Facebook posted a shot of latkes topped with a little of both, which would explain my impression that it's a both situation not just either/or.

I just find the idea of apple sauce and fried potatoes fairly odd, so imagined that there might be some ancient symbolic reason for the pairing.

A preliminary read of the history is rather tangled-up and has the distinct look of having been retrofitted.

Anyway, a tangy fruit sauce is a good match for greasy food -- duck a l'orange, anyone? -- so it isn't completely peculiar. Just not sure why it is what it is.

[Jenise]

Certainly one could argue that apple sauce and ketchup aren't THAT different.

My god now I want latkes for breakfast SO bad....

[Robin Garr]

A couple more thoughts. Jeff, you can check me on this: In a Jewish feast there won't be dairy on the table if there's also meat, like a brisket for example, so sour cream is only an option with dairy meals, but applesauce works any time.

Also, just as you don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's rye bread, you don't have to be Jewish to have potato pancakes/kartoffelpuffer with applesauce (or sour cream) on the table. It's Jewish, it's German, and I doubt it would be easy to find out who thought of it first. Probably everyone did!

A couple more thoughts. Jeff, you can check me on this: In a Jewish feast there won't be dairy on the table if there's also meat, like a brisket for example, so sour cream is only an option with dairy meals, but applesauce works any time.

Also, just as you don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's rye bread, you don't have to be Jewish to have potato pancakes/kartoffelpuffer with applesauce (or sour cream) on the table. It's Jewish, it's German, and I doubt it would be easy to find out who thought of it first. Probably everyone did!

Absolutely so, on both counts.

I was chortling about the background I've dug up so far:

On the religious mumbo-jumbo side, potato pancakes are associated with Hanukkah. The given reason? They are cooked in oil and the holiday celebrates the miracle that a day's lamp oil lasted for eight days. That seems mighty thin.

Much more likely is that Jews picked it up from a medieval rabbi in Italy who wrote a list of foods suitable for use on the Hanukkah holiday, including latkes. Of course, after a few hundred years, one man's recommendation becomes everyone's obligation.

There is another reference, however. Potato latkes are relatively recent inventions because Europe did not have potatoes until the 16th C. So, earlier recipes for latkes had to have been made from something else! That something else appears to have been cheese. And now we return to our Old Testament stories.

In the Book of Judith: Holofernes led an army of Assyrians to punish all nations that did not rally to Nebuchadnezzar's side in the recent war. As he approached the Jewish city, a beautiful widow, Judith, visited him with wine and cheese. She got him drunk and cut his head off. The Assyrians were routed in the ensuing combat. Cheese and dairy dishes are said to be eaten in her honor.

Well, then.

[Jenise]

Now there you are; that's just the kind of 'ancient' I was talking about! Everything Jewish has an ancient reason, or so it seems, and I say that with much admiration as my own family's traditions only go back as far as the I Love Lucy era.

[Robin Garr]

Jeff, Judith and Esther were about equally cool, but with Esther you get ... wait for it ... the whole megillah!

Do you serve megillah with sour cream or applesauce?