Give dairy its due in Hanukkah tradition

As the story goes, sometime around 2 B.C. a widow ingratiated herself with an enemy general, plying him with salty cakes of cheese, then wine to quench the thirst it brought. When he fell into a drunken stupor, she lopped off his head with his own sword.

Fried foods and the sacred oil they represent are the better known Hanukkah tradition, but the tale of Judith and her cheese-based effort to save the Jews from Gen. Holofernes and the Assyrians triggered another important tradition - the eating of dairy.

Which makes cheese blintzes and sour cream as fitting for the holiday as fried potato pancakes (latkes) and jelly doughnuts. And when you dig into the history of the holiday, you discover most of the dishes are connected, anyway.

To get an idea of what Judith might have fed the general, Joan Nathan, author of "Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook," looked to an ancient Roman recipe for making cheesecakes using flour, cheese, honey and eggs.

These sweet cheesecakes, which are described in a book on agriculture dating to 2 B.C., were an important part of religious services and the recipe was likely to be widely known.

By Medieval times, pancakes made from flour and water had come to symbolize Judith's cheesecakes. But it wasn't until probably the 17th century that the potato pancake was added to the holiday repertoire.

"The potato," says Nathan, "is really a New World food, brought to Western Europe from Bolivia and Peru in the 16th century."

These days, for most American Jews the crispy, golden potato latke is the gastronomic star of Hanukkah, and the dairy tradition is lesser known. Even Nathan says that as a child she was never told of the symbolic connection to the story of Judith.

Laura Frankel, executive chef at Spertus, a Chicago-based, high-end kosher catering company owned by Wolfgang Puck, admits she didn't discover the dairy-Hanukkah tradition until she tired of riffing on potato latkes year after year and started researching alternatives.

For her cookbook, "Jewish Foods for All Seasons," Frankel created a variation on arancini, a popular Italian croquette made with rice and cheese. Her arancini di farro, calls for faro, an ancient variety of wheat which is similar to barley, rolled together with both ricotta and parmesan cheeses, plus fresh herbs. The small balls are rolled in bread crumbs, then fried in olive oil.

"It's perfect for celebrating both traditions, since it's both dairy and fried."

This year, Frankel is making tortelli di zucca, an olive oil-fried pastry pocket filled with a mixture of canned pumpkin, leeks, cooked Arborio rice and cheese. The recipe can be found on her blog lauraskosher.com.

Frankel particularly likes both of these dishes because children are able to help with the assembly. Potato latkes tend to involve a bit too much hot oil for the prep to be child-friendly.

Cookbook author Barbara Kafka has a similar tradition with her grandchildren. They make traditional flour pancakes that are served topped with sour cream and apple sauce as part of a simple buffet that usually also includes smoked salmon.

The pancake mixture can be made ahead, she says, which makes it an even easier project to do with children.

Other dairy dishes recommended by Nathan are baked noodle kugels, which often are made with cottage cheese and sour cream, and rugelach, a half-moon shaped cookie made with a cream cheese-based dough.

Apart from its symbolism, Nathan likes the dairy tradition because it's a perfect way to add variety to the eight nights of Hanukkah meals.

"After all," she says "you can't eat potato latkes every day."

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