Potatonik may refer to two distinct potato-based dishes derived from

Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine is an assortment of Traditional food, cooking traditions that was developed by the Ashkenazi Jews of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, Northwestern Europe, Northwestern and Northern Europe, Northern Europe, ...

. One version is a hybrid between potato kugel and bread, containing shredded

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es and

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

s as well as ample

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

and leavened with

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom (biology), kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are est ...

. Another dish, apparently unrelated but called by the same name, is essentially a very large

latke A latke ( ''latke''; sometimes romanized ''latka'', lit. "pancake") is a type of potato pancake or fritter in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine that is traditionally prepared to celebrate Hanukkah. It is commonly eaten in Israel and the Jewish diaspor ...

meant to be cut into wedges at the table. It is also known as geribinik. "Potatonik" is an

Anglicization Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English languag ...

of the Yiddish ''kartoflnik'' that appeared in Ashkenazi-American communities – the word ''kartofl'' is one of many Yiddish terms for potato, and the suffix ''

-nik The English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun (that is, it describes a person related to the thing, state, habit, or action described by the word to which the ...

'' indicates something associated with a specified thing or quality and creates an "

agent noun In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, ) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, ''driver'' is an agent noun formed from the verb ''drive''. Usually, '' ...

" in

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...

. According to food writer Joel Haber, "kartoflnik uniquely started with raw, grated potatoes, rather than cooked and mashed ones s is done with potato breads Thus, artoflnikheld onto its potato-y flavor, while also remaining a member of the kugel family." A related dish, ''ulnik'', used buckwheat flour with grated potato, but no yeast.

References

Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine Potato dishes {{Jewish-cuisine-stub