Potato Pancakes

The culinary style of the Carreras household while I was growing up was a blend of Continental Spanish, Caribean Spanish, German, Hungarian, and American. Oh, and then there were the weekend visits at my Uncle Joe and Aunt Lee’s house, which was Italian. I like to describe it as growing up a New Yorker.
But one dish genuinely brings me back to my childhood: my Hungarian grandmother’s potato pancakes. This was a Saturday morning treat. We would have been dropped off at her Bronx apartment Friday night, and after a night of watching TV, playing with Blackie, her dog, and getting friendly with the semi-stray cat, Tippy, that she fed, we’d be off to bed.
In the morning, breakfast would always include potato pancakes.

Years later, I worked as an anthropologist in a small, urban, multi-ethnic community. Now, in popular culture, anthropologists regularly gather information through observation and questioning. This is true, as far as it goes. In fact, you build bridges through sharing. So, the people in the community learn about you as you learn about them. One of the people I was closest to was Julia. Julia was a Polish American and a big promoter of everything Polish. We built a bridge based on familiar Central European tastes in food, my interest in Polonia, and our shared interest in the small community where she lived and I worked.

Life was good, especially when I was invited over for the Polish version of potato pancakes, which seemed not too far removed from what Grandma had made.