Hanukkah Recipes- Holiday Foods for the Ages

By: Michael Sarko | November 29 2010
Posted in Recipes - Seattle Recipes

Photo: dra schwartz

Tradition isn't just handed down through the generations in stories and esoteric rituals. We connect with years and people past through our very senses. It's astonishing and comforting to know that certain sights, sounds, tastes and smells of a holiday have been experienced by people throughout the ages. This elevates the scent of potato latkes frying in the kitchen from just a simple domestic perfume of Hanukkah to something downright sacred.

Though I didn't know it at the time, those childhood days of watching my mother cooking the traditional Hanukkah meal of latkes, fresh applesauce and even sweet jelly-filled doughnuts for dessert were experiences I shared with my ancestors. To think, 300 years ago there was a little boy in Eastern Europe who eagerly awaited those same dishes, not aware that some scrap of his own story would come to be told to the world through this at once amazing and commonplace technology called the Internet.

So, to say that these Hanukkah dishes are based on my mother's recipes doesn't really capture the sheer scope of their origin. To some degree, these recipes belong to the countless people who have shared them throughout the generations. This holiday season, I continue in that tradition so you, too, can share the amazing sensory experiences of the ages.

Homemade Hanukkah Applesauce

Potato Latkes

Sufganiyot- Jelly Doughnuts for Hanukkah