On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:54:02 GMT, Peter A >
wrote:

>In article 9>, Wayne
>Boatwright <wayneboatwright_at_gmail.com> says...
>> While latkes are customarily made with potatoes, the word "latke" simply
>> means pancake. It's derived from the Ukrainian word "oladka".
>>
>>
>
>Which is derived from Greek eladia "little oily thing" which is derived
>from elaion "olive oil" and so on and so forth.
>
>It's a mistake to go into the past to determine what a word means,
>although it may be an interesting study. What the word means now may be
>quite different. In the English-speaking world, I bet that you would be
>hard-pressed to find somneone who (assuming that they have an opinion)
>would not think that "latke" means a potato pancake.


In the home in which I was raised, my mother made potato latkes,
salmon latkes, cauliflower latkes and matzo meal latkes. We knew what
the word meant.

Boron