If you are a person who does not love the latke, I do not want to know you. I do not want to talk to you. Go away with your bad annoying healthy self.

You do know what a latke is, right? (I figure by now only my fellow children of Judea are clicking on this column.) For any of our goyish friends who may have accidentally stumbled on this page, a latke is a deep-fried potato pancake. We eat these arterial time-bombs of deliciousness on Hanukah as a tribute to our friend Oil. You may recall the story of Hanukah: After a miraculous come-from-behind victory over the oppressor (there's always an oppressor), our forefathers entered the Holy Temple to see a total mess after years of war. They found only one little sealed jar of oil, enough to light the ritual lamp for one day. Bummer. But lo and behold, a miracle occurred and it lasted for eight, and by then they'd found a new source of oil, or pressed more, or something. What am I, a Talmudic scholar? Anyway, it's all about the oil. In Israel, they eat Sufganiot instead, which are deep-fried donut-like objects. Oil.

Latkes are supposed to be piping hot, glistening with oil, crispy on the outside and tender within. Nowadays, postmodern artistes are challenging latke norms by making sweet potato latkes, zucchini latkes, mixed vegetable latkes, latkes with strange spices in them. Even though change and modernity generally make me cranky, I approve of these experiments. As long as I can have my regular latkes, I will happily sample les nouvelle pommes frites des juifs. (My hope is that a miracle will occur and the calories of eight days will count as the calories of one.) The only innovation I can't get behind is the low-fat latke. Two years ago, my fiance and I had a holiday party and made latkes for 60. Clearly, we were smoking crack. The drapes smelled like latke for weeks. Anyway, we made them on a griddle instead of in a deep pan full of oil. The latkes came out pathetically flat and either bitterly burnt or starchily undercooked. Our guests ate them anyway, because they were mostly goyim and what did they know.