Mrs. Inventosh
Mrs. Inventosh was my fifth grade teacher; she was responsible for teaching us about the Holocaust and the recent history of European Jewry. It was a heavy unit in our class--hard to take.
Mrs. Inventosh's parents had died in the Holocaust. We didn't just get the gruesome documentary evidence of the camps (oh, we did get that), but we got her family stories. They were recent enough in time to be real to us kids.
I don’t know how the Holocaust is presented to school kids today, but in my day, it wasn’t sanitized. The books and films we had easy access to included all the horrors. The starving prisoners, the piles of bodies in front of bulldozers. None of this was hidden.
Mrs. Inventosh made this course time more than what it could have been, and she made it bearable, by humanizing it. One day she told us to put our books down. We were going to take the day in the home economics wing and learn some traditional Jewish holiday foods.
She set up a stand mixer on the institution-green formica countertop (it was a late 60s kitchen wing) for making latkes. It looked like the kitchen in the Brady Bunch where Alice made meals, only much larger.
We all had a job to do. Peeling potatoes, onions, heating up the oil in the electric skillets lined up on the counter. The proper way to make latkes, she taught us, was to put half the potatoes along with the onions through the meat grinder, and to roughly grate the other half of the potatoes. Then, you must put the pulp in a muslin cloth and squeeze the potatoes dry.
Add an egg, matzo meal, and plenty of salt and pepper, to make the batter.
While she worked with us she told us about Hanukahs at her family's house, what a menorah meant, and taught us some traditional songs. I was captivated by the tale of the lamp that kept burning, the oil that never ran dry.
At Hanukah, we kept a menorah and lit each candle day by day in her class. There were also gold-foil-covered chocolate coins and dreidels to play with.
By the time we were done making the latkes, there was a room full of (at least nominally) Christian kids who discovered the best possible version of potatoes, and who felt like they'd really been at someone else's unfamiliar, but warm and welcoming, table.
Mrs. Inventosh took a special interest in me. I think she knew I came from a bad home, and I didn't know what to do with my bookish, frightened self. She praised my reading obsession instead of mocking me, and got me books beyond grade level. She made time between classes to talk with me privately about what I was reading; it meant a lot to get this kind of special attention from an adult who cared about me and thought I was worth her time.
I have always made latkes Mrs. Inventosh’s way, because it is the only correct way. I think of her every time I do it.
Joy Inventosh's memory is a blessing to me, and, I suspect, to many other kids.
Mrs. Inventosh's Latkes
Think in ratios, rather than absolute measurements.
The correct ratios are 2-3 parts potato to one part onion. So when I make a batch of latkes, I take 2-3 medium-large russet potatoes and one large onion. Then I add one egg, and "enough" matzo meal or flour to make a batter of the right consistency. You know how it's supposed to be if you're a cook.
If you do not have a meat grinder, you can make these by grating all the potato and onion. Just be sure to squeeze the mix as dry as possible.
Cut the potatoes and onions into chunks that will fit into the mouth of your meat grinder. I have a grinder attachment on the Kitchen-Aid mixer, but you can use anything that grinds. After you grind the veg into a meal, it will be very wet. Put it in a cloth and squeeze it just as dry as you can.
Then, take the other half of the potato that you've roughly grated with a hand grate (squeeze the potato dry first) and combine with the potato-onion meal. Add your egg, flour/matzo, and plenty of salt and pepper.
Fry in plenty of hot oil.. I mean plenty, not "a drizzle on the bottom of the pan." Drain on paper towels.
I'm a savory man, so I go for sour cream, not applesauce.
Mrs. Inventosh's Latkes
Think in ratios, rather than absolute measurements.
The correct ratios are 2-3 parts potato to one part onion. So when I make a batch of latkes, I take 2-3 medium-large russet potatoes and one large onion. Then I add one egg, and "enough" matzo meal or flour to make a batter of the right consistency. You know how it's supposed to be if you're a cook.
If you do not have a meat grinder, you can make these by grating all the potato and onion. Just be sure to squeeze the mix as dry as possible.
Cut the potatoes and onions into chunks that will fit into the mouth of your meat grinder. I have a grinder attachment on the Kitchen-Aid mixer, but you can use anything that grinds. After you grind the veg into a meal, it will be very wet. Put it in a cloth and squeeze it just as dry as you can.
Then, take the other half of the potato that you've roughly grated with a hand grate (squeeze the potato dry first) and combine with the potato-onion meal. Add your egg, flour/matzo, and plenty of salt and pepper.
Fry in plenty of hot oil.. I mean plenty, not "a drizzle on the bottom of the pan." Drain on paper towels.
I'm a savory man, so I go for sour cream, not applesauce.
This brought a tear to my eye. I'm a little older than you, and I think I was taught the Holocaust accurately but definitely not with that level of depth. Mrs. Inventosh sounds amazing.