About three months ago, I visited Cochin, a town with ancient Jewish roots in Southern India. There I met one of the city’s remaining Jewish women, who taught me to make crepes out of rice flour that were later filled with potatoes, Indian spices, and onions: an Indian blintz.
American Jews associate them with Eastern Europe, but they probably started closer to Cochin—in China (rice pancakes for Peking duck), India (dosa), or Turkey (pastels).