Eleven Chefs Put the Sizzle In Philly’s Latkepalooza
Last Sunday, Philadelphia’s Gershman Y assembled an array of the city’s top chefs for its third annual Latkepalooza. The scene would have made the Iron Chef proud:
One room, 11 chefs, two-and-half hours and more than 5,000 sizzling latkes.
Twelve dollars was all that the mere mortal needed to play food critic for the day. And as one might have expected, opinions differed wildly as to which latke was the winner.
“The Whole Foods latkes were your basic traditional latkes, with good heirloom applesauce,” Philadelphian Jeremy Kukafka said.
“The Bookbinder’s latkes were the best,” Meredith Goldsmith of Phoenixville, Pa., countered from her place farther up in the line. With roughly grated potatoes topped by smoked salmon, crème fraîche and salmon roe, these weren’t your bubbe’s latkes. Then again, Bookbinder’s — a Philadelphia temple of trayf — is perhaps not where one’s bubbe would have gone looking for latkes. Latkepalooza, however, is a strictly kosher affair.
The participating chefs did not allow this small fact to fetter their imaginations. Unconventional latkes were to be found in abundance. A couple of the offerings — the wasabi latkes, for instance — were, in the eyes of some a little too unconventional. Some didn’t even look like latkes. The boxy ginger-cilantro “latke” being offered by chef Joseph Poon looked much more like kugel.
By far, the longest line in the room led to Fritz Blank and his cabbage latkes. Blank, chef de cuisine of the elegant Deux Cheminées, eschewed potatoes entirely. The relative lightness of his batter was an unequivocal word-of-mouth hit.
“Is there at least some onion in there?” a reporter asked.
“I completely forgot the onions!” Blank laughed, assigning blame for the omission to his assistant. “But they taste good anyway, right?”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
