Does anyone know a recipe for Potatonik? I’ve tried the NY
Times recipe online, and it’s not what I knew and loved.
Growing up, we never had potato kugel. My “Bubba” (not Bubbie,
not Bobbie) always made Potatonik! Her family was from Galicia,
south of Przemysl and Western Ukraine (Ustrzyki Dolne,
Posidov-Nowy Miasto, and Mostyska.) Potatonik used to be sold in
the bakeries but now it has disappeared.
Is it possible that what people are calling potatonik is a potato
knish? That would explain why it was sold in the bakeries. But
the word potatonik is as I said unknown east of Ellis
Island--Yinglish--which is Yiddish English, like the word "derma"
for kishka, which was invented by Jews because it sounds less
Jew-ish than kishke. I believe the word was used in Saul Bellow's
Augie March, written in the '40's when gentiles didn't know from
Yiddish words. Now I hear proper Anglo New Englanders throwing in
Yiddish words in radio commentary.
