A new Sephardi myth, brought to you from Amsterdam. Throughout the Winter season, the Dutch sell and eat sweet fried 'oliebollen' in the streets that - Hey they are just like sufganiot! This makes them just like many other sweet pastries made of deep-fried dough, including the German Berliner, which is much more like the oliebol in taste, texture and appearance BUT, writes the American Jewish news agency JTA, is eaten year-round and has sweet filling (that's right, exactly like the sufgania)."These similarities are not necessarily the result of coincidence," says JTA, quoting Dutch Jewish cookery writer Jonah Freud. Freud believes the current tradition of the oliebollen, which dates back to the late Middle Ages, may be rooted in the Jewish sufganiyah. According to Freud, "Jewish food historians believe the habit of injecting a sweet filling into the sufganiyah is a late influence that Ashkenazi Jews either invented or picked up in Germany, where bakeries for centuries have been selling the Berliner, a pastry that looks and tastes like the sufganiyot sold in Israel today."And here it comes: "But to this day, some Sephardim in Israel, France and Morocco spurn the jam filling." Jonah said this gives credence to theories that oliebollen in their current form were brought to the Netherlands by Portuguese Sephardim who came here from the 15th century onward to escape religious persecution in the Iberian peninsula. Who knows. Oliebollen may have been the favourite seasonal food of th famous Sefardi pirates...Of course there is much more to the story; read it here