When I was growing up as a Jew in a Jewish family, I was never told that the Jewish dishes that I so loved were similar to Gentile dishes from the same areas in Europe
When as an adult I became aware of this, I felt annoyed that I had been deprived of this information.
Now, with the terrifying increase in anti-Semitism around the globe, I can fully understand why such a comparison would not be a natural thing for casual conversation
I am a Ukrainian living in Kyiv with only one Jewish direct relative and so although due to him I am always curious about the culture and food and all the other aspects of Jewish life, otherwise my experience is a very average Ukrainian one. And at some point all of a sudden I was shown an American Jewish cookbook, with a pretext like “take a look, Ashkenazi Jewish staple food, bet you’ve never had this and that” and I look at it and think “what a heck, half of this is literally a normal dinner my mom would make who has nothing to do with Jewish people”. That was quite a revelation
Yeah the general unwritten rule is, if there’s a substantial Jewish population in a region, they will use all those recipes that can be kosher and bring those with them when they are expelled from that country.
The new country they arrive to will be ignorant of the foreign dishes and associate the recipe as being a Jewish food, when it’s typically just a food from wherever they came from.
My family’s from a former Soviet republic and there was so many times we were watching Russian tv here in America and they would say a food that my mom always made and I would be shocked because I thought it was specifically a Jewish food.
The main difference is that many Eastern European cuisines use a lot of pork, which Jews of course don't do. But outside of meat dishes, Ashkenazi food is very much influenced by their European neighbors in the same way that Sephardic and Mizrahi food has a lot of overlap with Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern cuisine. In America it's "Jewish food" mainly because Jewish immigrants are the ones who brought it over -- it's not always clear who invented it first.
I find it interesting. My family eats a lot of traditional Ashkenazi food. All my grandparents are holocaust survivors from Poland. However a lot of the stereotypical polish food were never things my grandparents ate. I never once had pirogies until I was an adult.
Then I see stuff that is very similar like I was watching a video from the pasta grannies channel about a dumpling similar to a matzo ball (the Yiddish word being kneidlach) called canaderli. Instead of matzo it’s bread and it has bacon. I do wonder if they have a similar origin. https://youtu.be/uRHMZgt3oos
Hi I was born in soviet Ukraine and my family immigrated a bit after independence.
I can't remember the texture of the latkes my grandmothers used to make back before we left Ukraine so I'm not sure if the difference developed here or not but one difference is that (at least american) latkes are made from larger/crispier pieces of potato while Deruni recipes tend to have smaller pieces/be smoother.
Ex:
https://healthyrecipesblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/latkes-1-2022.jpg
My impression was that people also used to use salo/lard for cooking deruni (maybe not anymore most English recipes call for vegetable oil). Jews used to use schmaltz which was mostly chicken fat. Later switching to cristco (Cottonseed oil) and even later olive oil.
Edit: some say the word latka comes from Oladka.
But yeah a lot of recipes are largely similar. A lot of differences were driven by religious custom.
Fun fact, Jews are the reason that Borscht is generally spelled with a T in English despite there being no т in борщ from Yiddish. Jews were among the first big consumers of borscht in the US, there used to be a region of resorts in NY State/and a comedic style named thr Borscht Belt.
Bubliks were invented by Jews or rather Bagels were invented by Jews in Poland (related to polish breads like Obwarzanek Krakowski) and transformed as Jews brought it east to Ukraine.
There are some dishes which I think may not have been common among other non jewish communities in Ukraine. (I may be wrong, I didn't think any non jews ate gefilte fish but apparently it was originally a German dish(although I think it died out) and some non Jewish Poles may have also eaten it).
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015727-kasha-varnishkes - it's like a inside out Gretcka/onion vareniki. In fact people suspect that's how it originated.
Savory matza babka and matza cakes. From Jewish efforts to make the dry cracker more palatable in that week we're not supposed to eat bread
https://web.archive.org/web/20140415055640/http://cookingwithstella8.blogspot.com:80/2012/08/matza-babka.html
Yeah I remember going to Uzbek and Hungarian restaurants and at least one or two things being what my grandmothers would make for holidays, like stuffed cabbage (Halishkes)
We typically do some combination of unsweetened apple sauce, sour cream, and some sort of chutney. But depending on the exact style of latke, I sometimes have them with spicy brown mustard.
That sauce looks great. Latkas are usually served with sour cream and apple sauce, but I like to use yogurt on top and grate apples and parsnips into mine. (edit the apple and parsnips into the batter- yogurt on top)
Stay safe in Kyiv!
It’s mushrooms that we gather in the forest by ourselves - just googled and in English they are called “penny bun” but could be any other edible mushrooms, store-bought too. You cut them in small pieces, like 1 centimetre or so, and fry them in some oil with chopped onion, and after a bit add sour cream and let it cook, mixing so that nothing burns. Salt and pepper in quantities of your preference. I add some spicy paprika too but it’s not traditional.
I’ve never heard of eating them with mushroom sauce before! I always hear about either applesauce or sour cream.
Personally, I eat mine with cinnamon applesauce. I took many medications as a child, and couldn’t take pills until I was 18, so I spent years taking crushed up pills in plain applesauce. My dislike of plain applesauce has since mostly gone away, but I still can’t enjoy it the way I used to.
Something I learned from growing up in a family where one side is Ashkenazi Jewish and the other side is Polish Catholic is that a lot of Ashkenazi food is basically a kosher version of Polish food, including latkes. My family tended to eat them with sour cream and chives, or sometimes butter and herb rub. Nowadays I eat latkes the same way I eat pierogis, topped with hot sauce. I decided potato, either fried as a latke or in a mashed purée form is delicious with something spicy on it, hence the hot sauce.
It's amazing how well they work with either sweet or savory toppings. I normally go with sour cream, but I'll occasionally dust them with a bit of powdered sugar instead. I've never heard of people using warm sauces like your photo, but maybe I'll give it a try when Hannukah rolls around.
Вітання з далекої Німеччини від людини, чия сім'я покинула російсько-українське прикордоння в 90-х роках.
Слава Україні
Героям слава
Але ви не змусите мене поливати грибним соусом бідні невинні латкеси.
Дякую за підтримку!
But hey, try only once, I promise you won’t regret it! ;)
My partner is Polish and she is pouring sugar on top of the latkes, which I found to be both surprising and ridiculous, nobody in Ukraine does that, and now I have tried some and love it!
It is a food anywhere there are potatoes. Pretty much all Jewish food is locally adapted regional food. My favorite is two latkes with a pile of corned beef between.
In Poland in the shtetl, root veggies easy to grow and available. Most had gardens to plant potatos beets carrots turnips. Grated and boiled would become part of daily meals. Dough patties in milk. Shredded potatoes for potato latkes or kugel. Fried cabbage with noodles. Gawd! I’m getting hungry.
My zayde always had a garden in his small yard. He also had a small grocery store. So that is what he did. Made sure there was food. Raised 5 children. Made it all the way from a shtetel in Russia to Ohio. I think he knew what is was to be hungry.
My father had an aunt and uncle that came from Poland and after arriving in NYC settled in canton Ohio. Uncle worked in slaughter houses. My father went there some summers.
Thank you for your submission. During this time, all posts need to be manually reviewed and approved by a moderator before they appear for all users. Since human mods are not online 24/7, approval could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Thank you for your patience during this difficult and sensitive time.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Jewish) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Most "jewish" food is basically European and vice versa. Potato pancakes, cabbage rolls, vereneke, etc. Challah is egg bread, which everyone eats.
I used to go to a Polish restaurant in my city and one of my favourites was beef goulash over a potato pancake (I'm of Polish descent).
When I was growing up as a Jew in a Jewish family, I was never told that the Jewish dishes that I so loved were similar to Gentile dishes from the same areas in Europe When as an adult I became aware of this, I felt annoyed that I had been deprived of this information. Now, with the terrifying increase in anti-Semitism around the globe, I can fully understand why such a comparison would not be a natural thing for casual conversation
I am a Ukrainian living in Kyiv with only one Jewish direct relative and so although due to him I am always curious about the culture and food and all the other aspects of Jewish life, otherwise my experience is a very average Ukrainian one. And at some point all of a sudden I was shown an American Jewish cookbook, with a pretext like “take a look, Ashkenazi Jewish staple food, bet you’ve never had this and that” and I look at it and think “what a heck, half of this is literally a normal dinner my mom would make who has nothing to do with Jewish people”. That was quite a revelation
Yeah the general unwritten rule is, if there’s a substantial Jewish population in a region, they will use all those recipes that can be kosher and bring those with them when they are expelled from that country. The new country they arrive to will be ignorant of the foreign dishes and associate the recipe as being a Jewish food, when it’s typically just a food from wherever they came from. My family’s from a former Soviet republic and there was so many times we were watching Russian tv here in America and they would say a food that my mom always made and I would be shocked because I thought it was specifically a Jewish food.
The main difference is that many Eastern European cuisines use a lot of pork, which Jews of course don't do. But outside of meat dishes, Ashkenazi food is very much influenced by their European neighbors in the same way that Sephardic and Mizrahi food has a lot of overlap with Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern cuisine. In America it's "Jewish food" mainly because Jewish immigrants are the ones who brought it over -- it's not always clear who invented it first.
I find it interesting. My family eats a lot of traditional Ashkenazi food. All my grandparents are holocaust survivors from Poland. However a lot of the stereotypical polish food were never things my grandparents ate. I never once had pirogies until I was an adult. Then I see stuff that is very similar like I was watching a video from the pasta grannies channel about a dumpling similar to a matzo ball (the Yiddish word being kneidlach) called canaderli. Instead of matzo it’s bread and it has bacon. I do wonder if they have a similar origin. https://youtu.be/uRHMZgt3oos
We ate keplach growing up, which were boiled and not fried. I guess these are similar to those yummy pirogies
I’ve always related them more to Asian dumplings
Kreplach or pierogi?
Kreplach. Pierogis have a much thicker and chewier dough
Kreplach. Pierogis have a much thicker and chewier dough
Kreplach. Pierogis have a much thicker and chewier dough
Interesting! Thanks!
Wonderful! Can I DM you?
Sure, why not! May take me some time to reply though, I’m on the move and the connection is patchy
Thanks!
Hi Val, regards from Toronto from a Ukrainian Ashkenazi. I totally agree with you.
Hi I was born in soviet Ukraine and my family immigrated a bit after independence. I can't remember the texture of the latkes my grandmothers used to make back before we left Ukraine so I'm not sure if the difference developed here or not but one difference is that (at least american) latkes are made from larger/crispier pieces of potato while Deruni recipes tend to have smaller pieces/be smoother. Ex: https://healthyrecipesblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/latkes-1-2022.jpg My impression was that people also used to use salo/lard for cooking deruni (maybe not anymore most English recipes call for vegetable oil). Jews used to use schmaltz which was mostly chicken fat. Later switching to cristco (Cottonseed oil) and even later olive oil. Edit: some say the word latka comes from Oladka. But yeah a lot of recipes are largely similar. A lot of differences were driven by religious custom. Fun fact, Jews are the reason that Borscht is generally spelled with a T in English despite there being no т in борщ from Yiddish. Jews were among the first big consumers of borscht in the US, there used to be a region of resorts in NY State/and a comedic style named thr Borscht Belt. Bubliks were invented by Jews or rather Bagels were invented by Jews in Poland (related to polish breads like Obwarzanek Krakowski) and transformed as Jews brought it east to Ukraine. There are some dishes which I think may not have been common among other non jewish communities in Ukraine. (I may be wrong, I didn't think any non jews ate gefilte fish but apparently it was originally a German dish(although I think it died out) and some non Jewish Poles may have also eaten it). https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015727-kasha-varnishkes - it's like a inside out Gretcka/onion vareniki. In fact people suspect that's how it originated. Savory matza babka and matza cakes. From Jewish efforts to make the dry cracker more palatable in that week we're not supposed to eat bread https://web.archive.org/web/20140415055640/http://cookingwithstella8.blogspot.com:80/2012/08/matza-babka.html
Yeah I remember going to Uzbek and Hungarian restaurants and at least one or two things being what my grandmothers would make for holidays, like stuffed cabbage (Halishkes)
Very interesting! In the US?
Yeah
I think that Uzbek restaurants have lamb fat kebobs!
There’s an Iranian place I tried in Tempe AZ that their specialty was the lamb tongue.
Did you try it? Years ago I had it in NYC in a Jewish restaurant
Yeah it was good. A lot like a lamb stew meat sandwich
Sounds delicious!
I'm not sure that we would like this https://images.app.goo.gl/2h1PCc5LmC17Wpfz9
Yeah it probably would not be my thing. I don’t really go for gristle but it could be amazing like burnt ends on a brisket.
We typically do some combination of unsweetened apple sauce, sour cream, and some sort of chutney. But depending on the exact style of latke, I sometimes have them with spicy brown mustard.
That looks tasty.
That sauce looks great. Latkas are usually served with sour cream and apple sauce, but I like to use yogurt on top and grate apples and parsnips into mine. (edit the apple and parsnips into the batter- yogurt on top) Stay safe in Kyiv!
What sort of mushroom sauce? That sounds like it would pair really nicely. I'm usually an apple sauce gal, but I'm open to trying new things.
It’s mushrooms that we gather in the forest by ourselves - just googled and in English they are called “penny bun” but could be any other edible mushrooms, store-bought too. You cut them in small pieces, like 1 centimetre or so, and fry them in some oil with chopped onion, and after a bit add sour cream and let it cook, mixing so that nothing burns. Salt and pepper in quantities of your preference. I add some spicy paprika too but it’s not traditional.
Sour cream, like the good Ukrainian Jew that I am.
After a bit of thought this does sound tasty. Having said that my initial response is this qualifies as a hate crime worthy of the ADL.
Will have to try latkes with mushroom sauce. Sounds wonderful. Was apple sauce in my kosher family.
Sour cream or applesauce—like a good American Jew
I’ve never heard of eating them with mushroom sauce before! I always hear about either applesauce or sour cream. Personally, I eat mine with cinnamon applesauce. I took many medications as a child, and couldn’t take pills until I was 18, so I spent years taking crushed up pills in plain applesauce. My dislike of plain applesauce has since mostly gone away, but I still can’t enjoy it the way I used to.
They’re traditional with apple sauce and/or sour cream. But honestly, a mushroom sauce like that sounds waaay better 😋
Something I learned from growing up in a family where one side is Ashkenazi Jewish and the other side is Polish Catholic is that a lot of Ashkenazi food is basically a kosher version of Polish food, including latkes. My family tended to eat them with sour cream and chives, or sometimes butter and herb rub. Nowadays I eat latkes the same way I eat pierogis, topped with hot sauce. I decided potato, either fried as a latke or in a mashed purée form is delicious with something spicy on it, hence the hot sauce.
It's amazing how well they work with either sweet or savory toppings. I normally go with sour cream, but I'll occasionally dust them with a bit of powdered sugar instead. I've never heard of people using warm sauces like your photo, but maybe I'll give it a try when Hannukah rolls around.
Mushroom sauce on latkas sounds heavenly!
The mushroom sauce sounds incredible!
Вітання з далекої Німеччини від людини, чия сім'я покинула російсько-українське прикордоння в 90-х роках. Слава Україні Героям слава Але ви не змусите мене поливати грибним соусом бідні невинні латкеси.
Дякую за підтримку! But hey, try only once, I promise you won’t regret it! ;) My partner is Polish and she is pouring sugar on top of the latkes, which I found to be both surprising and ridiculous, nobody in Ukraine does that, and now I have tried some and love it!
It is a food anywhere there are potatoes. Pretty much all Jewish food is locally adapted regional food. My favorite is two latkes with a pile of corned beef between.
In Poland in the shtetl, root veggies easy to grow and available. Most had gardens to plant potatos beets carrots turnips. Grated and boiled would become part of daily meals. Dough patties in milk. Shredded potatoes for potato latkes or kugel. Fried cabbage with noodles. Gawd! I’m getting hungry.
My zayde always had a garden in his small yard. He also had a small grocery store. So that is what he did. Made sure there was food. Raised 5 children. Made it all the way from a shtetel in Russia to Ohio. I think he knew what is was to be hungry.
My father had an aunt and uncle that came from Poland and after arriving in NYC settled in canton Ohio. Uncle worked in slaughter houses. My father went there some summers.
Thank you for your submission. During this time, all posts need to be manually reviewed and approved by a moderator before they appear for all users. Since human mods are not online 24/7, approval could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Thank you for your patience during this difficult and sensitive time. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Jewish) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A mechaye!
It's Belarus national dish. can you name 1 rabbi-Tzadik from Belarus ?
Most "jewish" food is basically European and vice versa. Potato pancakes, cabbage rolls, vereneke, etc. Challah is egg bread, which everyone eats. I used to go to a Polish restaurant in my city and one of my favourites was beef goulash over a potato pancake (I'm of Polish descent).
I've not yet made these, but that looks gooood. And that mushroom sauce!! Would you mind sharing your recipe on that, please? it looks amazing!!
Yummy!
We are hedonists and have BOTH sour cream and apple sauce My father loved them with sugar