Surviving Passover

Charoset

The beauty of Passover—bare with me now—is the fact that Jews have somehow managed to turn a holiday that commemorates a mass exodus into a feast. Of course the Passover Seder is not about gluttony; it is an opportunity for families and friends to sit down together to a drawn-out, comforting meal and remember things past.

The Seder meal is accordingly consistently reliable but rarely mind-blowing­—a time for brisket, not filet. Charoset is one important exception to this rule—this exquisite mix chopped up apples, nuts, and red wine and cinnamon, symbolizing the mortar slaves used to build bricks is well worth whipping up at any time of the year.

As the week of Passover stretches on past the first couple of nights, Jews might find themselves eating bizarre Passover kosher substitutions for things they would never eat otherwise. One such item is the ever present jelly candy. Although these candies come in a variety of shapes and colors they are essentially less chewy versions of Haribo sweets. The most classic type of jelly candy comes in a shallow white box covered in cellophane, displaying rows of brightly colored, sugar coated orange-slice shaped pieces of jelly.

Macaroons are another Passover product that are widely consumed in place of whatever sweets one might usually eat. Passover macaroons, however bear no resemblance to the delicate airy French version but are rather stodgy coconut balls—they appeal only because they are regarded as both festive and a novelty, much like candy corn on Halloween.

One should always be wary of foods marketed as substitutions. Almost all Passover kosher foods fall into this category: Passover cereal, pancake mix, couscous, etc. Matzos are fairly benign when spread with a bit of butter and jam, but what inspires people to begin soaking it in hot water and pulverizing it in a blender and so on in a desperate effort to construct a Passover friendly mille feuille escapes me.

It seems silly to stock up on items which taste nothing like real thing when there are so many normal lovely things to eat that are Passover friendly. Fresh fruit is one such item, as is yogurt drizzled with honey. Instead of rolling bits of raw fish in matzo farfel to make Passover Sushi, why not just eat the sashimi with a little seaweed salad on the side? Perhaps Passover should be viewed as an opportunity to jolt one’s self out of (potentially unhealthy) eating habits. Who needs Froot Loops?

Matzo Ball Soup

Contrary to the professed angst of so many Jews, Passover food can be (and often is) quite delicious. The holiday of Passover, or Pesach, which starts this Saturday night at sundown and goes through the following Sunday night, is derived from the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. It basically celebrates, in an oh-so-contemporary-American-politics way, ‘freedom,’ especially as a redemptive blessing of G-d. Many people, though, only hear about the food.

As the story goes, when the Jews were all fleeing from the fickle wrath of the pharaoh and his terrifying army, they had to pack up and get the hell out of Egypt in such a hurry that their bread didn’t have time to rise. As they didn’t want to waste the dough (who wants to waste?), they carried it out on their backs, and it was cooked to a crisp in the smoldering, oven-like Egyptian sun, turning into, voila!, matzo, the traditional Passover staple of white-and-brown unsalted-cracker-like sheets.

From this story, we get the rules of specific Passover kashrut or Kosher laws, namely, that Jews aren’t supposed to eat chametz, traditionally anything that includes wheat, barley, oats, spelt, or rye that has been given the chance to sit mixed with water, and perhaps begin to rise, among many other specifications.

Not only does this rule apply to food, one is traditionally supposed to clean out all of the chametz from one’s home in a rigorous process including kashering (washing thoroughly, according to specific rules), all utensils, linens, shelves, appliances, etc. and cleaning out all cosmetics and pet food that would be limited by the same water/minute/grain rule. The Ashkenazi, or eastern European, branch of Jewish tradition mandates that Jews must also refrain from eating kitniyos during Passover, which includes rice, corn, and beans.

What this means, along with the fact that Passover, like many Jewish holidays, mandates seders, or festive family meals. During the Passover seder, the Haggadah, the story of the Jews’ trials and eventual escape, is read. And the joy of Jewish cooking takes on a whole new challenge during Passover. The fruits of that challenge come in many, many, delectable forms; Passover-observant Jews have a whole other section of Passover food in supermarkets from which to find acceptable ingredients, labeled Kosher for Passover, or Kasher L’Pesach (KLP).

Many complain about the hassle—and taste—of eradicating most carbs from their diet for a week, but so many of the recipes yield food that can be enjoyed year-round. Aunt Susan, the worst cook in my family and proud of it, adjusts her classic Ridiculously Easy Brisket to cook at Passover. Grandma Annabelle makes us flavorful, comforting matzo ball soup at home in Memphis, Tenn. every Friday night for Shabbat—Jewish Sabbath—dinner, and her maid always brings a pot of that same matzo ball soup to her Southern Baptist church’s functions, where it meets with plenty of bowl-slurping good reception every time.

“Recipes, shmecipes”, say some Jews when it comes to contorting recipes for Passover. My friend Paul insists that KLP pancakes are far superior to all other pancakes—the instructions are on the KLP-pancake-mix box—and makes them for any meal, year-round. My father learned how to make a mean matzo brei from his college roommate, which only entails crumbling a piece of matzo into a bowl, mixing it with a slosh of milk and an egg, and cooking it like scrambled eggs in a greased skillet.

My rabbi’s wife uses matzo run under water for a minute or so as the layers of pasta traditionally used in lasagna in a generic lasagna recipe. Most generic recipes can be manipulated for Passover use, or, heck, you can just mix KLP ingredients together in an original, if precarious, masterpiece.

In case you aren’t up for the whole cooking thing at all, New York is paradise for fine KLP dining. You can check out all approved restaurants at www.oukosher.org. Levana (69th St. between Broadway and Columbus) and Talia’s Steakhouse (93rd St. at Amsterdam) both offer gourmet Passover seders on the first and second nights of the holiday and á la carte and takeout items for the rest of the week and have online menus. These gourmet offerings all look fabulous and varied, if a bit pricey.

Whatever your reason for making a trip into the KLP food world, be sure to remember that, although you are “free” to complain, you are also “free” to sit back and savor it for the fabulous Jewish cooking it is. Neither Pharaoh nor any other oppressive people can stop you, and if that’s not being “patriotic” nowadays, I don’t know what is.

Matzo Brei

Many Jews agree that the saving grace of Passover is the charoset, or the matzah ball soup, or the increase in potato ingestion during the week. They will even go as far to say that Passover food isn’t so bad; it’s like the Jewish Atken’s Diet, and what is food other than a plate of salad and chicken?

But no matter what Manischewitz wants you to believe, clever marketing can never make Passover food taste as good as real food. Though food engineers have thought up a number of “tasty” Passover treats from Passover cereal to Passover ketchup to Passover crackers, the real joy of the week is eating Matzo brei. Matzo brei, a version of Jewish scrambled eggs, is a Passover delight perfect for those working through past memories of slavery in Egypt while presently suffering due to mediocre unleavened bread choices.

Matzo brei is the mark of genuine Passover food, not chemically engineered to taste like Doritos or Koronet’s Pizza. Matzo brei tastes like matzo with a little help from some butter and the salt and pepper shaker. Furthermore, Jewish grandmas around the world enjoy cooking matzo brei for their grandchildren suffering from Passover-style Cocoa Puffs. So if Grandma thinks it’s good enough to eat, you should too!