Frying high: Keeping known, lesser-known culinary traditionsRecipes follow.
Written by Sybil Kaplan (Jewish Tribune)
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
JERUSALEM – Latkes and sufganiyot, the jelly-filled doughnuts especially popular in Israel, are well-known Chanukah fare made with oil to signify the holiday tale.
Lesser known is the tradition of cheese and the story of Judith.
Like the Chanukah story, which is part of the Apocrypha – books not incorporated in the Bible – the Book of Judith tells of a beautiful widow whose town was under siege by the army of the Assyrians and decided to visit the commander in chief of the army to ask him not to overtake the town. As the story goes, she gives him wine, he gets falling-down drunk and falls into a stupor. Judith beheads the king and saves her people and the town.
Legend has it that Judith fed him cheese to make him thirsty, and since she lived in the same period as the Maccabees, Jews of various communities instituted the custom of eating cheese dishes in honour of her heroism.
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Cross-file under "Apocrypha Watch" and "Hanukkah." More here on the original story of Hanukkah in the Apocrypha.