Hanukkah is almost here, which means it’s prime latke season. The crispy potato pancakes are pretty much synonymous with the Jewish holiday and are meaningful to the December celebration.
“Potato latkes are the quintessential holiday food,” says chef and TV personality Andrew Zimmern. “Remember, the latke is a fried potato ‘pancake,’ deeply and symbolically important. Hanukkah is when we celebrate a miracle, the lamp in the temple filled with only enough oil to last an evening, divinely lasting for eight nights. So anything fried in oil is a tangible, edible way to relate to the holiday itself.”