January 2, 2025
By Adam Brownstein
One of my earliest memories was my father imploring me to stop.
The setting was our family’s rental apartment at 2727 Palisade Avenue in Riverdale, and the occasion was Hanukkah 1975. His warning centered around my attempt to set a Bronx Borough record for the most latkes ever consumed in a single evening. Based on past experience, my father was right to be worried. When I found a food I fancied, I just kept going after it until a tummy ache (or worse) ensued. In 1975 alone I had recorded three such episodes. They were in chronological order: Shamrock Shake(s) at McDonald’s in March, french toast at the Riverdale Diner in May and a Nathan’s hot dog on Coney Island in August.
Now, for Hanukkah, I was unintentionally headed towards the 1975 Grand Slam of stomach episodes thanks to the latkes that kept piling up on my plate. In our tiny galley kitchen my grandmothers, visiting from Chicago and Florida, worked tirelessly grating russets and onions, despite the risk of flaying their knuckles. Fusing them with just the right amount of beaten egg, salt and matzo meal, the matriarchs of my clan slipped spoonfuls of the mixture into a large Faberware pan deeply puddled with Wesson oil.
But of course, my epicurean endurance came at a dear but not unexpected price; after consuming my final potato pancake I calmly excused myself from the dinner table and proceeded to become violently ill in the hallway bathroom. Resting my keppeleh on the familiar cooling comfort of the porcelain bowl I could feel my father gently patting my valour draped shoulders. It was not so much an I-told-you-so pat. More like an I-love-your-&-Happy-Hanukkah pat.
Despite our rough beginnings the humble latke and I have fared rather well together. This is particularly true in Japan, a country whose cuisine would be Jimmy Page if food were born again as a rock and roll guitarist. While Japan boasts the best dining on the planet, the Jewish repertoire is limited to a handful of worthy recipes. I have only had the gumption to serve three Yiddishkeit foods to friends and family in Japan. Matzo ball soup with its silken, soulful broth hits the right umami notes. My house crafted gravlax, bathed generously in Uncle Bern’s famed schnapps before being put on cure, presents an air of epicurean sophistication. Slicing up a side into paper thin portions with my trusty Global G-6 fish monger’s knife adds to the theater.
While matzo ball soup and gravlax require no special occasion, latkes enjoy great acclaim for only the short, sweet Season of Hanukkah. I reckon that their limited supply is what imparts them with such high status. As the tale goes Pete Rozelle was once asked about what makes the NFL so amazing. 16 games. If there were games all of the time for months at a time like baseball and the NBA no one would really care. And so it is with latkes.
Every December in my home in Tokyo, the early signs of latke fever begin to emerge. It typically begins with a winking flourish at the end of a text exchange with our teenage daughter. “. . . and it’s been getting cold recently, Dad, so can you give me a ride to gymnastics practice? And, BTW WHEN are you going to make LATKES???” With the elder stateswomen of our progeny now banging her fist on the table, our young sons quickly join ranks to lobby me. They issue passive aggressive hints like loading up our Amazon with Hokkaido potatoes and safflower oil along with fabulously overvalued, limited edition Pokemon cards. When, like a snap election in France, I set a date on the calendar that reads “Kimoto Brownstein Annual Latke Party” my wife instantly accepts. Moreover she affords me full reign of the kitchen during Pre Game preparation.
With Hanukkah coming so late in 2024, I decided to double the family recipe, securing a full kilogram of potatoes (for most of my readers that translates to about two pounds) to scrub, peel and grate. The initial stages of my endeavor were neither meditative nor lonesome, as my daughter and eldest son joined ranks with me to spoon in the batter to our tempura fryer. However as soon as the first batch had a few moments to rest on a Bounty-lined plate my production crew morphed into my target consumer set.
“Oh my God! Best latkes EVER!” chortled my daughter.
“More, dad!” demanded my son. “More, more, MORE!”
The complementary nature of their rhetoric was both sincere and self-serving, adding to my motivation to get through an enormous bowl of latke batter in a few short minutes. As I slaved away over the canape-sized crisps I felt the gentle pat of my five-year-old son on my back. He looked up at me with a warm smile etched across his countenance that read “how about some latkes for me?” Gazing at my child I was transported back, if for only a moment, to my own joyful suffering on Palisade Avenue during Hanukkah 1975. I smiled tenderly at him and issued a small plate of latkes, blowing on them for an instant to add a measure of coolness and nachas.
Epilogue: In 2025 I expect to increase my potato quotient to 3 kilos, given that our kids eat all of the latkes save for two small ones for my wife. I was left, quite proudly, with the little bits of latke crumbles that remained on the Bounty in 2024.
The Tokyo Yenta 