Food has always held a particularly important place in Jewish tradition. On Hanukkah, Jews and non-Jews alike enjoy latkes, or fried potato pancakes, and on the holiday of Purim, which fell this past Saturday, they enjoy Hamentashen.
Hamentashen are doughy cookies filled with jam, fruit, or nuts, and are characterized by a triangular shape based on the hat of Haman, the villain of the Purim holiday (whose attempts to decimate the Jews of ancient Persia were foiled by the brilliance and beauty of Queen Esther).
While these delicacies have been relished for centuries by varying palates, rarely have the merits of latkes been compared with those of hamentashen. But 50 years ago, the University of Chicago held a debate comparing the two, and the tradition has since been adapted at various venues nationwide.
On Thursday evening, University students organized the first Latke vs. Hamentashen Debate in recent years, replete with samples of the two foods in dispute.
Adjunct Instructor of Religion Dalit Katz introduced and moderated the debate. Proponents of the hamentashen’s superiority kicked off the satirical event. Professor of Music Mark Slobin was first to speak.
Slobin presented what he called an “ethnographic approach” to the argument, and recounted his “fieldwork” in hamentashen-sampling. He described his own familial relationship with the food, as well as the multicultural aspects of the hamentashen.
“You have to admit that the discourse of the latke is extremely flat,” Slobin concluded.
Sam Kachuck ’10 spoke next, using an elaborate mathematical approach based on the triangular shape of the hamentashen to claim superiority for the pastry. Met with much laughter from students in attendance, Kachuck scribbled numbers, graphs, and limit equations furiously on the blackboard.
He explained that hamentashen are the more economical of the foods as they (through their triangular shape) waste no geometric space and thus allow greater potential for population growth. Hamentashen, Kachuck declared, more accurately comply with the tenet; “be fruitful and multiply.”
Rounding up the pro-hamentashen panel was Lisa Currie, director of Health Education. An Irish Protestant, Currie had never before eaten a hamentashen, and until a few hours before the debate did not even know how to pronounce the word. She argued against the latke on the basis of their chief content—potato—which had caused the near demise of the Irish people.
“A near genocidal agent!” she declared.
Currie stressed the importance of the pastry’s shape, in tune with the tripartite division of human health: mind, body and soul.
“I will now declare it the symbolic treat of WesWell,” she said.
Jodi Eichler-Levine, a visiting instructor in the Religion department, spoke first on behalf of latkes. She lectured with a comically academic, clearly over-intellectualized rhetoric. Eichler-Levine approached the debate as a humanist and as a religionist, and in the course of her discussion went through an exegesis of biblical sections.
Eichler-Levine ended by reminding the audience what the hamentashen recalled—a woman who achieved victory and royal status by sleeping her way to the top.
“Please,” she said. “Think of the children.”
Next on the pro-latke slate was Tom Crosby ’07. A member of the Wesleyan Debate Team, Crosby emphasized the demerits of the hamentashen rather than the merits of the latke.
“[The hamentashen] will subvert our society if we continue to eat it,” Crosby said.
Crosby argued that not only did the hamentashen remind people of Haman’s poor fashion sensibilities, but also the sweet’s high sugar content would cause more weight gain than the latke. Additionally, Crosby mentioned, a popular ingredient for hamentashen filling is poppy, the source of opium.
“You’re not only fat and lethargic, but you’re also drugged,” he said.
Last to speak on behalf of latkes was Laurel Appel, a visiting professor of Biology, who argued from her field of expertise. Appel, a reductionist, reduced the foods to their shapes, and concluded through various comedic examples that triangles, in nature, are “not kosher.”
A brief question and answer session followed the debate, which closed with a vote by applause of the approximately 50 attendants. Latkes were chosen as the final victors of the show-down, but on all sides the debate provided a comical and informative glance of Jewish history.
Emily Einhorn ’08 organized the event on behalf of the Havurah, the Jewish community on campus. Einhorn expressed an interest in making the event a University tradition.
“My plans are to make them bigger and better every year, with more people, music, and food,” she said.
Some attendees came into the debate clearly supporting one side over the other.
“I liked the different angles the presenters took,” said Jeff Wong ’08. “Still, though, it was clear to me that the latkes were going to win from the beginning. They’re just a better food.“
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