They tried to kill us! They failed! Let's eat!

[gnomi]

The majority of respondents (12) wanted my next poll to be Judaism-related, so... a Chanukah food poll:

[Poll #887949]

Comments

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Clearly we are going to have to bombard B with traditional Jewish treats while she (and you?) are here in March...

[byrne.livejournal.com]

omg yes PLEASE!!!! Pretty please???

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

I'll make sure to have sour cream and apple sauce. Kosher, of course. ;-)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yes! Must bombard! If my plan goes correctly, I'll be in NYC the night before I meet up with you, and therefore I can pick up all sorts of traditional foods before heading out toward NJ. :-)

And I now have my membership to the convention, so all is good. :-)

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Sounds great. I guess I should start a travel details email soon... heh.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Ooh... It'll be right after Purim. I should bring hamantaschen. :-)

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes you should. LOL

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

One of the neighbors down home used to make Latkes all the time, and we'd eat them with scmaltz (schmaltz?)(schmultz?) and LOTS of salt and they were insanely delicious.

I'm not sure what schmaltz is, exactly, but it tastes like roasted chicken and is fantastic. You can't buy it in the grocery, I've been looking for years.

(Well, you can't buy it in the grocery here)

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

...chicken fat.

yes, really.

[kmelion.livejournal.com]

whenever you clean chickens, you collect all the fat you can and the skin. When you have a considerable amount, you put it in a pot and cook it until the skin is golden brown and crunchy (those are called gribbenes... in the South, you'd call them cracklin's).

Pour the rendered fat into jars or containers and refridgerate... eat the cracklin's... you can add onion and garlic as you render the fat too...

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

I guess this explains why I can't find it in the stores! Thank you for the directions.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

And you should never eat gribbenes at a mohel's house.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

*groan*

I'll remember that, now, every time I save a bit of chicken fat.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I like applesauce on my sufganiyot.

(No, not really. Narf!)

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

Hee. I read this as "I like applause on my sufganiyot."

I need to slow down the read speed, no?

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

I think your subject header may well sum up Judaism in its entirety.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It does, indeed, describe the majority of our holidays. :-)

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

I love that line, and have used it myself (though I often substitute "God saved us" for "they failed").

Any idea where it originated? Google finds lots of hits, and I don't have time just now to do more research.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

I wanted to vote "both" on the sour cream/applesauce question, but I need to be clear that I mean "both" as in "either," and not "both" as in "at once," which would be just plain wrong.

Here!
There!
Everywhere!

[bluepapercup]

Maybe it's because I was raised a half-jewish christmas-loving godless heathen, but there is really NOTHING better than ketchup on Latkes. They're like big flat hash browns! My whole life everyone would be spooning on the applesauce and I'd be reaching for the ketchup, to the amusement of all.

Our traditional hanukkah dinner (the night we opened the house to friends and family) was lamb, broccoli, rice pilaf and so many Latkes. MMMMMMM.

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

You forgot to mention the third food most often associated with Channukah - chocolate coins :-)

[42itous.livejournal.com]

In my capacity as Afterschool Teacher today, I baked some "hashbrown patties" (which I found in the supermarket freezer case) and served them to the kids. I gave them choices of applesauce, sour cream, and upon request, ketchup. Two kids liked all three toppings (not at the same time), four liked applesauce or ketchup; only one child wouldn't try either of the traditional toppings. They all agreed that the "latkes" smelled and tasted like french fries. I didn't check whether they were kosher, but I'm fairly sure they were not.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Linguistic peeve: using "latkes" and "sufganiyot" in the same context. Please, choose from one set: "latkes" and "ponchkes"; "levivot" and "sufgayniyot"; or "potato pancakes" and "jam/jelly doughnuts".

(And then there are "chremzlach", which are like latkes except that they're made with mashed potatoes. Except when they're being a synonym for matzah brei.)

PS: I suspend my linguistic peeve for those who are actually offering me samples :-)

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Oh, and definitely "sham". The letters on the dreidel don't derive from the phrase "nes gadol haya sham"; the phrase is a backronym from the letters. The letters actually stand for "nisht, gantz, halb, shtel" ("not, whole, half, put"), which are the rules for what happens when that letter comes up. And they're a translation of the Latin letters on the teetotum (T = Totum, i.e. the same as Gimel). A real Hebrew dreidel would have כ ג ח ש, for klum, gadol, chatzi, sim/shalem (nothing, big, half, put/pay), and then we'd come up with a backronym like kohen gadol chiber shir (a high priest composed a song) or something.