Month: November 2018

Lazy Latkes: The Poppy and Prune Guide

Hanukkah is one week away! But let’s say you’re not in the mood to lovingly recreate three historic latke varieties from scratch this year—what’s a Jewish foodie to do? Don’t worry. I got you. The fact that I did lovingly recreate three historical latke varieties last week notwithstanding, I’m actually a pretty lazy cook myself […]

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Latkes Before Potato: Taste-testing Cheese, Buckwheat, and Chestnut Pancakes

Nothing says “Hanukkah tradition” better than a crispy potato latke, right? WRONG! Even though potato latkes have come to dominate the Hanukkah food scene here in the US in the twenty-first century, they’re actually a relative newcomer to the Jewish culinary repertoire. The potato, a native of South America, didn’t even arrive in Europe until […]

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Eating Black-Eyed Peas in the Caribbean’s Lost Jewish Colony

Winter weather getting to you? How about a little trip to the warm, sunny Caribbean.. more specifically, the lost Jewish colony of the Caribbean? “But P&P, that’s not a thing,” I hear you protesting. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit of an exaggeration—there is no Jewish Roanoke in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle—but the […]

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From Colewort to Cabbage: The Incredible Evolution of Cabbage Noodles

Cabbage is one of the world’s oldest cultivated vegetables, and even today it remains one of the most widely grown and eaten. But turns out the original cabbage was pretty different from the green (or red) stuff you might find in your basic 21st-century coleslaw. Wild cabbage—which, as I just learned in the course of […]

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