Talk:Potato pancake

Another name
Is this pancake also called Latkas? Yes it is! Germam Jews which are also referred to as Aushkinauzi Jews refer to it as latkas! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.163.252.135 (talk • contribs) 06:09, 29 July 2003

This page gives undue prominence to latkes over all the other forms of potato pancake in the introduction, e.g. as a Brit ( we dont really have a potato pancake of our own); I encountered them first as placki (ziemniacane) from the Polish or Roesti from the Swiss - perhaps the page should contain an (alphabetic?) list of all the various names and their regional or cultural associations like other articles? Anyway the point is that they are delicious!Truth regards not who is the speaker, nor in what manner it is spoken, but that the thing be true; and she does not despise the jewel which she has rescued from the mud, but adds it to her former treasures 13:12, 31 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nenniu (talk • contribs)

Rearrangement
Information was spreadout in a semi-random way in this article, so I put each into their own category.--Ernstk (talk) 19:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sweet potatoes
I don't know if it's cultural, but in my french-canadian town, Latkas are traditionally made with sweet potatoes. I have never seen them made with regular potatoes until I moved south to an all english area in Ontario, Canada. Perhaps if someone can find more information we can add a clause indicating they can also be made with sweet potatoes and if there is any culture that it's prevalent in. Silver 22:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm from the Canadian prairies (Manitoba and Alberta) and I've never heard of latkes made of sweet potato. That's kinda cool. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.154.122.52 (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

German?
Are these the same as the German reibekuchen (sp?) or in Kölsch riefkooche? The recipe looks exactly the same.
 * Just click on the Deutsch link to get the German article which shows that they are called, in German, Kartoffelpuffer, Reibekuchen, Reibeplätzchen oder Kartoffelpfannkuchen, Rievkooche, Schepperlinge, Kröbbelche, Hatscheln, Baggers, Flinsen, Klitscher, Fratzen, Bambis, Reiberdatschi, Pickat, Dätscher, Dotsch, Pratsch, Krumber Schnietchen oder Pratschen. Rmhermen 14:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latke should also mention 'knish' which is (often?) identical and ubiquitous in NYC.
 * Knish is a different food. Rmhermen 14:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, its a German recipe (Reibekuchen), not a Jewish one. Entire article should be deleted or edited so as only to contain references to potatoe pancakes. Anything in excess of this is cultural usurpation and myth-construction. 21:15, 28 July 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.166.217.51 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 28 July 2008


 * Since this is the English-language Wikipedia, we should be using English titles for articles instead of foreign terms or loanwords wherever possible. &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 20:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

from VfD
This article was nominated for deletion on 26 July 2004. The final decision was to keep the article. See Votes for deletion/Potato pancakes for a record of the discussion. Rossami 21:58, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Advertising?
The "News" section near the bottom looks like advertising. I'm pretty new here. Can a more senior person say whether the section should remain? Cognita 07:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Good call, Cognita. I was thinking earlier it just didn't belong in the article, but you are right that it can very well be construed as advertising. I have removed it. Valley2city 07:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Mashed potato pancake?
What about mashed potato pancakes? No mention is made of these. --71.235.102.239 01:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Potato Pancakes are Ukrainian! Djamorpheus 22:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

This is what I think most Americans would call a potato pancake - fried mashed potato patties - what's described by this article, fried shredded potatoes, are hash browns. Usually, the mashed potato patties get a outside coating of corn meal before frying - now that's a potato pancake. jmdeur 16:37 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Although potatoes come from the New World, potato pancakes almost certainly were being made in Europe before there was an America, i.e., U.S.A. I think they get dibs on defining what a "potato pancake" is. &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 19:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sources, please? Although an American I have never heard of this mashed potato pancake. We do have this kind because there is a large Polish-American population where I live. Rmhermen (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Hairy donuts
It is said that the Swedish name (raggmunk) has connections with the swedish for hair (ragg - actually hair standing up - as in the neck hairs of an angry dog/cat). It seems a bit farfetched. I think donuts (munk) was introduced long after potatoe pancakes in Sweden. Anyway references would help to prove me right or wrong. Benkeboy 15:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Introduction of potato in Jewish cuisine
The potato originated in South America, and was only introduced in Europe by the 18th century. This is the first Jewish recipe I've ever seen that uses potato.

I believe this should be mentioned in the article somehow. I've just seen someone calling this a "very traditional Jewish recipe", but of course it can't be that much traditional, as the potato is not a traditional European food... There should be a link somewhere in this article about the potato. -- NIC1138 (talk) 16:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Furthermore, the food is more correctly considered to be a more "Yiddish" food - it is a food very common in the Germanic and Central European regions. Even though potatoes were brought to Europe, they became very popular, and a staple in many areas because of its ease of growth (vis e.g. Ireland).--Ernstk (talk) 06:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That's the reason this article only supports a further artificial myth with regard to Jewish culture. In fact, it's an usurpation attempt, trifle as it may be. It should be deleted entirely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.166.168.45 (talk • contribs) 15:01, 29 July 2008 ; edited by 89.166.208.37 (talk) (contribs) 19:11, 29 July 2008

Recipe links
I've removed the recipe links on the grounds that they are inappropriate for Wikipedia. Per WP:ELNO, blogs and personal page links should not be included, which these were. The rest of the links are from unreliable sources, such as cooks.com, simplestupid.com, and so on. Wiki is also not a collection of links. The Wikibooks link is more than sufficient here; external links like the ones that I removed largely amount to linkspam. I should also point out that no other food articles have recipes listed, and this page is no different than those. &mdash;  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 06:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Ingredients
In Judaism many ingredients are actual spiritually oriented and perhaps instead of removing the ingredients we should explain the origins of the history and tradition of these ingredients. For example oil is related to the oil that we used to light the menorah, potatoes mean the fruit of the ground (pre adama) in hebrew and therefore represent the creation of man mundane into a spiritual entity. One recipe does make sense though I think if an ingredient has a spiritual meaning it would make sense for wikipedia to include those links onto the respected pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ygreenman (talk • contribs) 06:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a great idea. Are there good sources on this? I'd be happy to help. I was wrestling with the "oil" discussion trying to phrase it, but a good source would go a long way in directing the phrasing and inclusion. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a thoroughly sourced discussion of the "oil miracle" in the main article Hanukkah—where it belongs. There is a link from Potato pancake to Hanukkah, so no further sourcing is necessary. --Zlerman (talk) 02:12, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * As Hanukkah celebrations often include latkes the information belongs in the the Hanukkah article. And as latkes are often eaten around Hanukkah, the information also belongs in this article. Why would it be helpful to leave out relevant cultural and religious aspects of this food? ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

There needs to be some more research here. Potato pancakes were clearly a post-New World development in Europe and were (and are) common to much of Germanic and Eastern Europe as a basic foodstuff in wintertime, and with the immigration from Europe to North America, potato pancakes became common to ethnic groups with heritage from the entire region, the Jewish latke being only one variant, and likely, by quantitative measures, a minor variant in comparison with that of larger immigrant groups. Any attribution of a particular spirituality to a recipe like this, by any particular ethnic or religious community, will have to be treated here with a NPOV, and at the very least will require some solid references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.193.53.95 (talk) 12:21, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ukrainian word for potato pancakes
I think there are actually two different names for this food in Ukrainian, one is daruny but the other is Kartoplyanyky. --86.135.136.120 (talk) 21:42, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Pre-history before Spain brought the Potato to Europe?
Was there a previous form of the Latka before the potato was brought back by the Conquistadors? --173.60.153.11 (talk) 06:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

According to the footnote (no. 13), the early latkes alluded to in Jewish cuisine were mainly made from ricotta cheese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CF99:2080:3589:F8A0:9402:37B3 (talk) 14:43, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

what were Latke's made of before Potatoes arrived in Eurasia?
It doesn't seem to make sense that the Latkes in the Book of Samuel are the same recipe as those we enjoy today, chiefly because Northman immigration aside, Eurasia never met the potato before the European conquests of the Americas beginning in the late 1400s. The current article seems to ignore this twist of history. Does anyone have any information on it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Refractionsofthedawn (talk • contribs) 19:15, 15 December 2014
 * The fritters in 2 Samuel are a form of bread made from kneaded dough (2 Samuel 13:8). I will clarify this in the article. Ibadibam (talk) 20:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Ukrainian festival
I've removed, for now, the image File:Пам'ятник Деруну в місті Коростені на Житомирщині.JPG showing the potato pancake monument in Korosten, because it's crowding the article. But as this is related to a potato pancake festival held in the town (per this Kyiv Post article, it may warrant inclusion, along with mention of the festival. Can anyone figure out if the festival has continued (2009 was apparently the second year)? Also there are multiple pancake images that seem to be a bit redundant. Could we get away with removing one (maybe the Austrian one) to keep the quantity of images balanced with the text when we re-add the monument? Ibadibam (talk) 00:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Support img removal. — This article is about the potato pancake as a food item for all Wikipedia readers who wish to learn about it, and also, get the feel for its history and origins. The images of statues or any promotional posters (right) would have no relevance to what "latke" is, as in the case of the 67th Annual Latke-Hamantash Debate in Chicago since 1946 or the Korosten Festival in Ukraine. We can mention it, but without clutter. If we don't put a stop to it, there would be no end to all types of derivatives amounting to free advertising for local businesses. Poeticbent talk 00:29, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Latke Photo
Commenting of a 5-year old thread (below) I notice the current picture is the same picture used for hash browns. While it's a minor issue, especially as I can't tell which the picture is actually of, one of them is inaccurate. ---D--- (talk) 06:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Late to this discussion, but I agree with @ Haphazardjoy. While the image in question is no longer used on the hash brown page, the image currently being used here on the Potato pancake page looks just like hash browns which are just fried, shredded potatoes and not latkes. At least as I—an American born Polish Jew—knows them. The most representative picture on the page seems to be the Belarusian Draniki. That said, I don’t want to get into any deep cultural or culinary debates on the topic, but if someone gave me a plate of those featured “Latkes” I would wince. They look wrong. --SpyMagician (talk) 05:05, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Please note, five years ago on 27 January 2010, when user ---D--- (above) made his comment, the current lead image did not exist yet! It was uploaded on 14 January 2011 by User:Jonathunder. Therefore, responding to post by user @ Haphazardjoy (rather than starting a new thread) was absurd. Haphazardjoy was talking about this image. Poeticbent talk 00:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Concur. The lead image can easily by mistaken for loosely portioned North American hash browns. Suitable replacements are here. Poeticbent talk 16:11, 3 July 2015 (UTC)


 * ✅. Poeticbent talk 15:53, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

international versions on wikipedia
There is some mess with the wikidata language links. For example Tócsni on Hungarian wikipedia links to Rösti, and not Potato pa°ncake. There is also a page for Boxty, that links to seven pages on other language wikipedias, and i haven't checked all national versions here. There should be a single version, probably this one. I just don't know how to do it on wikidata? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.224.72.250 (talk) 15:43, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There aren't necessarily any easy solutions. We still haven't figured out what a cookie is in German, for instance. Rmhermen (talk) 22:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems less a problem of definition and more an issue of regional variants that have standalone articles on some projects but not on others. So do we let stand false equivalencies or make the standalones on other projects point here? And surely they're not all false equivalencies, particularly in Central Europe where there is a continuum of potato pancakes. Ibadibam (talk) 05:52, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Vegan potato pancakes
I would like a small (but pithy) section on (the challenge of) vegan potato pancakes. Ordinarily, potato latkes are held together with a scrambled egg, and well-known egg replacement strategies have reportedly been superseded with some of the VeganEgg products currently marketed. But recipe tweaks can produce a batter than can be fried well for vegan latkes or vegan pancakes. Potatoes, flour, oats, oil, onion, salt and pepper. There are variations, but today's 'vegan potato pancakes' are usually made with grocery store substitutions that are clearly one-for-one replacements - not what vegan potato pancakes of decades ago would have been. The 'old-fashioned' German way was to cover the top with apple sauce 'to cut the fat'. Of course, sauerkraut or horseradish sauce could be used instead. May I proceed? MaynardClark (talk) 03:42, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you have sources? Ibadibam (talk) 05:40, 15 December 2019 (UTC)