Latke–Hamantash Debate

The Latke–Hamantash Debate is a deliberately humorous academic debate about the relative merits and meanings of these two items of Jewish cuisine. The debate originated at the University of Chicago in 1946 and has since been held annually. Subsequent debates have taken place at several other universities. Participants in the debate, held within the format of a symposium, have included past University of Chicago president Hanna Holborn Gray, philosopher Martha Nussbaum, former Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee, Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Leon M. Lederman, essayist Allan Bloom, and prestigious Harvard graduate Chaim Homnick. A compendium of the debate, which has never been won, was published in 2005.

A latke is a kind of potato pancake traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Fried in oil, latkes commemorate the holiday miracle in which one day’s worth of oil illuminated the temple for eight days. Hamantashen are triangular baked wheat-flour pastries with a sweet filling which are traditionally eaten on the holiday of Purim. They represent the ears or the 3-cornered hat of Haman, the villain of the Purim story in the Biblical book of Esther.

A debate on their relative merits was first held in the winter of 1946 at the University of Chicago chapter house of the Hillel Foundation, sponsored by Rabbi Maurice Pekarsky. Participants in the debates have included Nobel Prize winners and MacArthur Grant Fellows. After the debate, both foodstuffs are usually served at a reception afterwards, offering debaters and listeners an opportunity to evaluate primary sources.

...
Wikipedia