The Great Sufganiyot Search: 2007 – 5768

Every year around Chanukah, the Jerusalem Post puts out a sufganiyot guide. The authors of the guide sample sufganiyot at a bunch of bakeries around town and then write a compiled review of their findings. I had a few concerns about this process last year: Did the authors have an appreciation for the scientific method? What was their methodology? For instance, if they sampled a bunch of sufganiyot in one trip, they would clearly be biased against their samplings by the end of the day, by which time they would surely be ready to vomit.

I felt it was important that each sufganiyot be allowed its own day; its own moment of glory; its own sacred time for contemplation, enlightenment, and introspection. Also, what if the testers just sampled a piece of a sufganiya? You can’t compare the center of one sufganiya with the edge piece of another.

I wanted to level the playing field for all the sufganiyot out there and I wanted to introduce a little objectivity into the study. Most of all, I wanted to sample every sufganiya in Jerusalem. And, okay, as anyone who ever attended the Scooperbowl with me will attest, I am a very competitive eater. I feel strong loyalties towards my favorite foods.

Despite a few well-intentioned concerns about my cholesterol fielded during last year’s study, I am up for the challenge once again. My yearly sufganiyot experiment may still not be a double-blind controlled study, but I have goals in place and I’m working towards them. Ultimately, I aim for my study to be worthy of Nature publication by Chanukah 2009 or at least an Ig Nobel Prize. I still have two more sufganiyot seasons to perfect things. How can you help, dear reader?

There are a couple things you can do. You can recommend locations around Jerusalem for me to try – good and bad, but mostly good, please:-) You can add to the comments section of this post your own reviews of sufganiyot you have consumed in the Jerusalem area. And finally, dear reader, you can work on your own major scientific breakthroughs. I am sure the sufganiyot connection won’t be very difficult to establish. Not a very sophisticated system for now, I know, but as time allows maybe I will start a sufganiyot blog that will take on a life of its own.

Ready…set…go!!!

And Happy Sufganiyot Season 2007 – 5768.

P.S. Definitely last week’s news, but for those following the saga, Harriet was successfully spayed.