Donut belly

December 5, 2010 - 11:20 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Food, Holidays 

Sufganiyot from Roladin

I can usually handle my Hanukkah donuts. As long as I keep up with my exercise routine, I might gain a kilo, maybe two, but it comes off pretty quickly.

But this morning, on my run, I could barely move. I go out with my wife Jody; she’s faster on flat ground, I zip up the hills, but on this day, she beat me in both elevations. My belly felt like I was lugging around a two-month-old fetus – OK, I don’t actually know what that would feel like, but I was unnaturally sluggish.

I should have expected it. Every year we go searching for the best sufganiyot (Hebrew for Hanukkah donuts). A few Decembers back, there was a tiny bakery on Halamed Hey Street in Jerusalem that won the newspaper critics’ award (and well deserved it). The shop has since closed down.

A close runner up (according to an annual poll conducted by The Jerusalem Post) was the Roladin Bakery which has an astounding variety of flavors – from double stuffed chocolate to champaign (with real alcohol). Jody found a coupon for one free donut with a purchase of ten. Soon, we had a pretty plastic container of decadently decorated sufganiyot on the kitchen table.

We split many of the donuts into halves and even thirds. The frosting was wonderful; the dough less so – it was heavy not fluffy and particularly flavorful. That didn’t stop us from finishing the box in one go.

To make matters worse, I had eaten a large falafel earlier in the day. The perfect Hanukkah treat – it’s also fried in oil – but an irredeemable blow to my waist.

I’m not the only person to complain of the December holiday bulge. And I know I’ll be OK eventually– we’re planning three hikes for the coming week, which should work off the extra calories. Still, I wonder why I can’t muster the willpower to abstain, when I feel so bad afterward.

Must have been all the champagne.

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Latkes vs. Sufganiyot – The Real Story

December 7, 2008 - 5:38 AM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture 

Holiday food is very seasonal in Israel. It’s hard to find a slice of honey cake in February, and for the eleven months before Passover season, you have to search the supermarket high and low if you’ve a yen for matzah (there’s plenty of matzah meal, though – what would Friday night soup be without matzah balls?)

The holiday treat with the longest “season” is the sufganiyah – the Israeli equivalent of what’s known as a donut in the U.S. I saw my first sufganiyah of the season three days after Sukkot ended, and by now, a couple of weeks before Chanukah, sales are at a fever pitch. As every American knows, there are donuts (Entenmann’s style, chocolate with the hold in the middle), and donuts (Dunkin style, fried up and stuffed with fillings). Israeli donuts are more like the latter. The traditional version leans to a jelly filling, but each year there are more varied options – the other day, for example, I got one with a creamy peanut butter filling, and one covered with enough green frosting to make it look like something they’d give out at a St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Sufganiyot are seen as the “Israeli” Chanukah treat, while potato pancakes – “latkes” – may be more familiar to folks in the U.S. and Europe, meaning that, to Israelis, they’re the preferred holiday food in the Diaspora. Hence, among some locals, it is considered déclassé to prefer latkes; real Israelis go for the donut. But the story is a bit more complicated. Sufganiyot vs. Latkes is not an Israel – Diaspora thing, it’s a Sephardic – Ashkenazic thing. That’s right – like with the general acceptance of rice and legumes on Passover, the Sephardic majority has given its imprimatur to Israel’s Chanukah food culture.

Potatoes were more common in Russia and Poland, while the Levant and northern Africa had more access to wheat; hence, both cultures took what was available, fried it up, and served it. Since plain fried potatoes – or fried flour – aren’t the most appetizing foods, both cultures came up with ways to enhance the appearance and taste of their dishes; sour cream and jam for latkes, and honey or sugar syrup for the fried flour creation. Thus, the modern sufganiyah, with its jelly filling, actually takes a bit from both cultures – and, with the expansion of western donut culture, the traditional sufganiyah now has competition from American-style donuts and fillings.

The common denominator between sufganiyot and latkes, of course, is that they’re deep-fried in oil, commemorating the miracle of the oil of the Chanukah menorah. Lots of oil guarantees lots of calories – flying in the face of another Western import that many of us subscribe to, healthy eating. But there’s another, less fattening aspect to Chanukah cuisine, not as well known but quite traditional; the consumption of cheese and milk products, based on the story of Yehudit, who drugged the Greek general Holofernes with cheese, putting him to sleep and killing him, thus enabling the Jews to achieve a major victory. For Israelis who want to avoid the fried stuff but still eat Chanukah-style, then, the answer is easy; just indulge in some of the many low-calorie yogurts, puddings, ice-cream, and other dairy treats Israel is rightly famous for!

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