However You Spell It, a Knaidel Tastes Good Arvind V. Mahankali of Bayside, Queens, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee last week on the strength of his mastery of "knaidel," a Yiddish word of German origin (and, it turns out, somewhat ambiguous spelling) for the dumplings that go into, among other things, matzo ball soup. But never in his 13 years had Arvind tasted an actual knaidel. On Monday, he did, at the Carnegie Deli.