Fried potato crackers for a Happy Hanukkah

Celebrating the Jewish festival of light (and fried foods)

Hello! Hello!

It’s like some kind of wonky cosmic convergence – within the space of a weekend we get to celebrate Thanksgiving and get to celebrate Hanukkah. Oh, and even Black Friday, if you’re of that persuasion.

By the time you read this, most of you will have packed up (or polished off) the leftovers from Thanksgiving, so it’s a good time to turn to Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Light and fried foods, which begins at sundown on Sunday.

Hanukkah is a celebration of an ancient miracle. When the Maccabees set out to reconsecrate a vandalized temple, they needed to have an oil lamp burn at all times, but they had only enough oil to last one day. The miracle was that the oil lasted eight days – and that's why Hanukkah does too. I found a good and straightforward explanation of the holiday in an unexpected place: Town & Country magazine.

Knowing that Hanukkah commemorates the oil that burned longer than it should have helps to explain why foods fried in oil are part of every Hanukkah cel…