'Iron Chef' competition puts a twist on latkes

By Estelle Tran / Assistant News Editor

published: Fri, 11 Dec, 2009

College students love to eat, but they’re notorious for being inexperienced cooks.

As expected from Pitt students in a latke cooking competition, contestants paced around their small, butane stoves with puffed chests and talked smack.

“Some people have T-shirts, and other people have skills,” Marc Schutzbank said to opponent Caryn Goldenberg.

Earlier, Goldenberg discovered that another contestant, Reva Gorelick, brought a food processor to Hillel Jewish University Center’s “Iron Chef: Latkes” event last night.
“It’s not kosher,” Goldenberg scolded jokingly.

Four teams battled for latke-cooking supremacy, and only three of the nine participants said they had any experience making the fried potato pancakes.

The traditional Hanukkah dish celebrates the one-day’s worth of oil that burned for the Maccabees for eight days.

Adhering to the Iron Chef cooking show’s format, an expert panel — comprising Gretchen McKay, a food writer from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Carly Adelmann, president of the Hillel student board; and Rabbi Donni Aaron — judged the creations. Also in true Iron Chef fashion, there was also a secret ingredient.

Actually, it was a lack of the main ingredient.

Brianna McDonough, the emcee, announced that the chefs would have to cook latkes with sweet potatoes instead of regular ones.

They could also use matzo meal, yellow and orange bell peppers, Gala apples, pears, yellow onions, mushrooms and spices in their cooking.

Contestants worked for 45 minutes, fiercely chopping, grating and flipping.

Most of the teams offered latkes with sour cream and vegetables, as well as sweet latkes created with apples and pears.

With about 15 minutes left, McDonough announced that the contestants needed to do all they could to stop their latkes from smoking. Participants nervously glanced at the looming sprinklers overhead and fanned the sizzling latkes.

In anticipation of the judges’ criticism, contestant Avi Sunshine said that he would fiercely defend his latkes, unlike other chefs on competitive cooking shows.

“It’s slightly different for me because I don’t want to cook.”

Parker Schnell replied, “He doesn’t care if he ruins his name in the industry.”

Becca Tanen, who spent months organizing the event, bought a pair of oven mitts that read “Certified Kosher Maven,” and she presented them to Schutzbank and Gorelick. Their latkes came with an apple and pear sauce protected by a triangle of carrots and a garlic sour cream dip.

After the competition, a jazz band played Christmas tunes, and the Vokols, a Jewish a cappella group, performed traditional Hanukkah songs to keep the party going. Attendees also ate sufganiyots, which are jelly-filled doughnuts, and regular, white potato latkes.