[ The process of examining recipes and cooking instills concepts
more deeply than traditional modes of assessment; learning about
Jewish women just by reading texts would be particularly ahistorical.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

OF POTATO LATKES AND PEDAGOGY  
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Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall
May 23, 2023
Perspectives on History: the newsmagazine of the American Historical
Association
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_ The process of examining recipes and cooking instills concepts more
deeply than traditional modes of assessment; learning about Jewish
women just by reading texts would be particularly ahistorical. _

The Osterizer’s Spin Cookery Blender Cook Book was the original
source for the Sepinwall family latke recipe, with modifications made
over two generations. , Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall

 

Cooking for the History Classroom

Though I usually prefer writing to cooking, my most famous dish is my
potato latkes. Latkes are consumed by Ashkenazi Jews (those from
eastern Europe) to celebrate Hanukah. Handed down on oil-stained paper
copies from my mother, our family recipe has drawn rave reviews from
friends and neighbors for as long as I’ve served them at Hanukah
parties.

There is just one thing: the recipe was not created by my family, but
by the Oster Manufacturing Company. In 1946, Oster introduced its
Osterizer blender, urging American women to embrace this “modern day
miracle.” According to the 1949 manual, the Osterizer promised to be
a “veritable giant with a hundred ready hands to help turn your
kitchen chores into more pleasant operations,” The blender came with
a recipe booklet, to help women understand the “limitless uses” of
their new appliance. By 1963, the Custom Osterizer Recipes booklet
included a recipe for blender-made potato pancakes next to one for
cheese blintzes, thus marketing to American Jewish customers alongside
the majority Christian population cooking for holidays like Christmas
and Easter.

My mother, Harriet Lipman Sepinwall, was an ideal customer for the
Osterizer. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland, she was
eager to make both modern “American” and traditional Jewish meals
for her and her new groom, Jerry Sepinwall, after their marriage in
1963. But she was also a first-generation college graduate and
dedicated teacher who could not spend all day cooking. Harriet’s new
Osterizer made cooking much easier for a working wife. My mother’s
mother, Ida Lipman, had made latkes for Hanukah as she had learned in
Poland, laboriously grating potatoes by hand. But for my mother, the
Osterizer sped latke preparation. By the time Harriet and Jerry had
three children, and my mother was professor of education at the
College of Saint Elizabeth in New Jersey, the Osterizer latkes had
become our family’s favorite holiday dish. When I grew up and began
cooking for friends, I continued to use this recipe, with a few
tweaks. Most importantly, I only purée half of the potatoes in the
blender and use a food processor to grate the others, which makes the
latkes crispier and more delicious.

I use this story with students at California State University, San
Marcos, in my course History 383: Women and Jewish History to
illustrate how a recipe’s history can illuminate lived experiences.
My latke story provides a basis for our culminating project: a cookoff
or “acculturation lab.” The course introduces many processes
affecting Jews in global history, from expulsions and migrations to
resistance, Jewish nationalisms, Jewish feminisms, and the Shoah.
After a unit on American Jewish life, the students and I turn to
historical cookbooks. Each student (alone or in pairs) selects one
recipe to cook and explain in a poster. The students then vote on
their favorite sweet dish and favorite poster. The project helps
students learn more about Jews in diverse parts of the world (whether
Turkey, India, or Argentina) through experiential learning.

As I tell students, learning about Jewish women just by reading texts
would be particularly ahistorical. Jewish women typically were not
able to sit and learn as their male counterparts would in a yeshiva or
as we do in the modern university. Especially without time-saving
modern appliances, much of women’s lives revolved around food
preparation and childcare. _Doing_ the cooking—seeing how long it
takes and the labor involved—helps students better understand
women’s daily lives in the past. _Tasting_ the cooking—and
noting similarities and differences between spices and flavors in
Jewish recipes from different regions, as well as how they compare to
non-Jewish foods from the same regions—helps them understand
multiple historical processes. These include migration (for instance,
of Spanish Jews to multiple parts of the Middle East after 1492) and
acculturation, as Jews kept distinctive food traditions even while
adapting recipes to local foodways (such as using avocados in kosher
food in California). 

The cookoff also helps me decenter Ashkenazi history. Many students
think that all Jews come from Europe, but of course Jews have lived in
many parts of the world, including India, Ethiopia, Morocco, and
elsewhere. Tasting the deep variety of “Jewish” food, as cookbooks
like Claudia Roden’s _The Book of Jewish Food_
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reinforces class readings on the complexity of world Jewry. Indeed,
the potato latkes that my family eats are not universally eaten by
Jews for Hanukah; Mizrachi Jews (those from the Middle East and North
Africa) make many other kinds of Hanukah dishes
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For instance, one common Hanukah treat among Moroccan Jews
is _sfinge_
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The process of examining recipes and cooking instills concepts more
deeply than traditional modes of assessment like quizzes or even
papers. And it has a lasting impact—no one forgets the assignment,
even after 20 years! For instance, Mel Fox Dhar, who graduated in 2004
and went on to work at Microsoft and Amazon, remembered that Jewish
cookbooks helped mid-20th century Jewish women “maintain cultural
connection as they moved out of big Jewish areas like New York City”
into other parts of the country. Brenden Garvin, a 2019 graduate who
now works as a corporate recruiter, recalled that “Learning about
the culinary history of Jewish women . . . taught us how diverse
Judaism is and [how] Jewish women lived their daily existence.”

The cookoff has also helped students better understand their own
families as part of a larger history. Kristin Gazallo (class of 2019)
experienced discrimination on campus as an Iraqi American. But in
History 383, she was able to honor her family’s heritage by
examining how Jewish Iraqi recipes compared to her family’s own
cooking. It was especially meaningful to Kristin, who has since earned
an MBA, to win our class cookoff with her kofta recipe only a few
months after she had faced bigotry in the dorms. Similarly, Julia
Friedman (2015 alumna and now writing an MA thesis on American Jewish
women and feminism) remembers how exciting it was to pore over
historic cookbooks and pick a turn-of-the-century dish to cook with
her mother. She recalls that, even though their dish did not turn out
well, “we really enjoyed connecting with each other in the kitchen,
where we tried something new while discussing our family’s culinary
history throughout the evening.”

For all these reasons, cooking (and eating) has an enduring place in
my Women and Jewish History course. Students learn a great deal—plus
the activity is delicious!

_Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall is professor and director of graduate
studies in history at California State University, San Marcos, and
winner of the 2023 Wang Award for Outstanding Faculty Teaching from
the CSU system. She tweets @DrSepinwall._

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