This page is not pierogi strawberry You may need permission to access this page. Israel and around the world on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Talmud’s description of a “spongy dough”. Various sufganiyot for sale at a bakery in Tel Aviv.

On Hanukkah, Jews observe the custom of eating fried foods in commemoration of the miracle associated with the Temple oil. The Hebrew word sufganiyah is a neologism for pastry, based on the Talmudic words sofgan and sfogga, which refer to a “spongy dough”. According to food historian Gil Marks, the recipe for a filled jelly doughnut was first published in a 1485 cookbook in Nuremberg. The “Gefüllte Krapfen” consisted of “a bit of jam sandwiched between two rounds of yeast bread dough and deep-fried in lard”. This doughnut became popular in northern European countries from Denmark to Russia during the 16th century. Among Polish Jews, the jelly doughnut was fried in oil or schmaltz rather than lard, due to kashrut laws.