Posted on 12/02/2021 12:47:54 PM PST by mylife
Through the eight days of Hanukkah, it almost doesn't matter what you eat, as long as it's cooked in oil. A good case could be made for eating potato chips with every meal throughout the holiday.
The story goes that in 165 B.C., the Maccabees, a small band of pious Jews, led a revolt that defeated the powerful Hellenist imperial army. The Hellenist forces had mandated pagan rituals into Jewish life and desecrated the Jews' temple.
There was only enough consecrated olive oil left to keep the temple lamp burning for a single day, so a messenger was sent for more. When he returned to the temple eight days later, the lamp was still burning. And to celebrate this miracle, Jews cook with oil during Hanukkah, which begins Saturday.
For most American Jews, that means cooking up latkes — potato pancakes fried in oil. But other cultures toss different foods into pots of boiling oil. In Austria, Jews eat deep-fried breaded meat called schnitzel, and in Morocco, Hanukkah couscous features deep-fried, rather than boiled, chicken.
"Italian Jews are not latke people," writes Joyce Goldstein in Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen. But deep-frying is an old Roman Jewish tradition, according to Goldstein, and cooks known as friggitori used to sell fried vegetables from street stands.
Today, restaurants in what was the Roman Jewish ghetto sell all kinds of deep-fried foods. One of the best known is carciofi alla Giudia, crispy-fried artichokes, Jewish style.
"The first time you eat one of these artichokes, it is so delicious, you will want to cry," Goldstein writes. She goes on to say, however, that the dish is difficult to make with American artichokes.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Was George planning on putting the china in the trash when he found the éclair ?? LOL
I love baking that.
Could be.
Lumpia is my favorite Filipino food. Walmart used to sell spring rolls that were almost the same thing. My father was from the Phillippines. Last year, my nephew married a filipino woman.
Hardly anyone reads the books of Maccabees, so they don’t know that the Maccabean revolt started when Antiochus IV tried to force the Jews to eat non-kosher potato chips.
I doubt that the Jews had a mandoline slicer back then; but maybe they had good knife skills :-)
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