My mother makes latkes using pulverized potatoes, so I always thought pulverized were the way to go. Only in college did I discover that most people shred their potatoes. I fought with my entire college Hillel about this every year, alienating many. In my old age, though, I’ve mellowed out: I realize that taste is subjective. People like what they grew up with -- latkes are, for many Jewish people, inherently linked to childhood holiday memories and…

The story of how my family acquired Old World recipes for Ashkenazi cuisine is a rape story – but it takes a bit of digging to figure that out. They don’t talk about it. The ones who are left alive to tell it, anyway, the old ones. And we, the young ones, learned long ago to stop asking. The pursing and hardening of lips that were wide open with laughter only moments before, the sudden…