It is the holiday season and arguably the best part of holiday festivities is the food! One of the traditional foods for celebrating Hannukah is Sufganiyot or jelly doughnuts. I always assumed that this was because of the fact that they are fried with oil and Hannukah is all about oil. This page from D is for Dreidel: A Hannukah Alphabet by Greg Paprocki made me realize that I really don’t know why that specifically of all the many fried foods is so traditional. So I looked it up!

I found this fantastic article about the history of jelly doughnuts (they are way older than I would have guessed!) and the reason for their place in Hannukah celebrations. I was really excited to learn that fried cheese curds are also a traditional Hannukah food! I didn’t know that! (I’m from Wisconsin – trust me, any excuse for cheese curds is cause for celebration.) The history of sufganiyot as the traditional Hannukah food is, perhaps unsurprisingly, heavily impacted by political and cultural elements.

J

is for jelly doughnut

I’m not actually a big fan of jelly doughnuts, but I do love learning new things and I’m so glad this awesome alphabet page inspired me to learn something new and fascinating!