While I really don’t know what the Macabees ate during that first Hanuka I’m sure that it wasn’t potato latkes. Potatoes didn’t exist in Ancient Israel or even in Ancient Greece. The iconic tuber known in Yiddish as kartoffel (and in Hebrew as tapuach adama or sometimes tapud, a literal translation of the French pomme de terre) is an Andean native which only entered the Western diet in the 16th century when the Conquistadors brought them back to Spain .
At first Europeans wouldn’t touch them and not because they were counting their carbs. In 17th and 18th century Europe people thought that potatoes were poisonous. In some places they fed them to the animals or to war prisoners who were considered more lowly than animals. Ironically it was a former POW who introduced the potato to the European pallet . Following his release in 1763 from a Prussian POW camp where he lived on the starchy vegetable without suffering any greivous consequences, French pharmacist Antoine Augustin Parmentier became the potatoes main booster. He published several scientific papers including one titled “Inquiry into Nourishing Vegetables That In Times Of Necessity Could Be Substituted For Ordinary Food” which went a long way toward improving the image of the much maligned spud.
Of course potatoes caught on big time, especially among the Jews . But back in Ancient Israel they were still unknown. The Macabees subsisted on legumes, grains and vegetables. If they did make latkes , they probably used wheat or ground barley .
Kasha, or buckwheat entered the Ashkenazi diet when Jews moved to Russia and Poland during the Middle Ages . According to customs expert Rabbi Dovid Meisels, the first latkes were made from buckwheat flour . I don’t have that recipe. I it probably consisted of pancakes fried in shmaltz a fat you don’t find around anymore. This is an American pioneer recipe, not quite authentic but a lot healthier and lower in fat than potato latkes and it’s almost as easy to make as Aunt Jemima .
Buckwheat Pancakes
3/4 cup of buckwheat flour (I put kasha through the food processor using the blade for about 10 minutes. The results were coarse but it worked well in the pancakes. I kept some of the batter overnight in the fridge. The kasha softened up and tasted even better than it did the first day)
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 and 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 cup vanilla yogurt (you can use plain but vanilla adds a nice sweetness)
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 T oil
Mix together with a wooden spoon or stick blender until smooth
Pour a thin film of oil on a non stick frying pan and saute gently (this isn’t greasy at all) on both sides.
Eat right away with or without maple syrup
