Holiday Mixes Taste & Tradition

By Joan Obra – McClatchy Newspapers

As Passover approaches, Jews are readying themselves for this ancient religious tradition.

They are cleaning their temples’ kitchens and emptying them of leavened bread. They are headed to supermarkets for kosher products such as matzo, coconut macaroons and wine. And come sundown April 8, they will sit down with their families to the first of two Seders, the ritual meals that mix food and the Haggadah, the text that recounts the exodus of Jews from Egypt.

“Basically, we all have a commandment to remember that we left Egypt every single day,” said Rabbi Levy Zirkind of Chabad of Fresno, Calif., a small Orthodox congregation. “Passover’s uniqueness is that we discuss it at length. The more you talk about it, the more praised you are, so says the Haggadah. So you have to re-live the miracle as though you left Egypt yourself.”

Given Judaism’s intricate dietary rules, food plays an important part in Passover. Jews change their food according to geographical differences and the movements to which they belong. One important rule, abstinence from hametz (leavened food made of grain and water), illustrates the variety of ways in which Jews observe Passover. The order to refrain from hametz comes from Exodus 12:15: “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; howbeit the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses; for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.”

Eating matzo also reminds modern-day Jews of their forefathers’ hasty departure from Egypt. They fled so quickly, there was no time for their bread to rise.

In preparation for Passover, the more observant Jews will completely clear their homes of bread products, beer and other leavened foods. They will also clean kosher cooking utensils or equipment that have come into contact with hametz.

At the conservative Congregation Beth Jacob in Fresno, a cleaning service thoroughly scrubs the synagogue’s kitchen to remove any bread crumbs.

“Then I go in there and make sure she’s done it the right way,” said member Laura Hadjis. White paper is placed on top of the countertops and butcher block, so food will not touch these surfaces (in case tiny hametz crumbs are still present). The microwave oven is cleaned with kosher soap and water. Afterward, a bowl of water is boiled inside the microwave oven to steam clean it. In addition, the stove burners and the oven are heated to high temperatures.

“You clean (the oven) first, then you are supposed to take a blowtorch and burn everything on the inside,” Hadjis says. “But we don’t do that. She cleans it and turns it to the highest temperature.”

Since they must not eat hametz, Jews substitute matzo, the unleavened cracker bread. To be kosher for Passover, the matzo must be prepared and baked in 18 minutes, before it’s had a chance to rise, Zirkind said.

As a result, many Passover foods containing matzo have evolved over time. Joan Nathan, an expert on Jewish cooking, shows off some of the various matzo dishes in her “Jewish Holiday Cookbook.” Matzo cake meal is used to make Passover cakes. Matzo farfel, or broken matzo pieces, is combined with pepper, cucumber, capers and chicken fat in a salad.

One of the most famous dishes is matzo balls in chicken soup, which local chef Andrew Karsh calls “Jewish penicillin.” Karsh, a member of Fresno’s Reform synagogue, Temple Beth Israel, shows how to make the soup at Karsh’s Grill and Catering, his Tower District restaurant.

“There are two types of matzo balls: floaters and sinkers,” he said. The floaters are light and fluffy, while the sinkers are heavy. To make floaters, simmer the matzo balls in a covered pot for about 30 minutes. To create heavier balls, uncover the pot for the second half of the cooking time, he says. Customers can test Karsh’s matzo balls themselves — he’ll serve matzo sandwiches and matzo ball soup at his restaurant during Passover.

Many families will make their own versions of matzo ball soup, but some orthodox Jews will not. They believe that water will cause matzo to rise, resulting in a leavened food, Nathan writes in her “Jewish Holiday Cookbook.”

The Chabad, for example, “don’t eat anything liquid with matzo,” Zirkind says.

There are also different culinary traditions among Ashkenazi Jews (ones from central and Eastern Europe) and Sephardic Jews (ones from Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean and the Middle East). Ashkenazim traditionally do not eat “legumes and seeds from pods” because their texture is similar to the grains in hametz, Zirkind says. Forbidden foods include corn, string beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, rice and mustard. Sephardim are not as strict. Also, Jews have varied traditions regarding roasted meat. “Traditional Ashkenazi Jews will not eat roast lamb or any roasted meat at Passover because of the bitter memory that the Temple sacrifices are no longer possible,” Nathan writes in her “Jewish Holiday Cookbook.” “Middle Eastern Jews will eat lamb, but never roasted. For many Reform Jews, exactly the reverse is true: Roasted lamb or other roasted food is served to commemorate the ancient sacrifices.”

These geographical contrasts and differences in movements extend to the Seders, which are held the first and second nights of Passover.

Throughout the Seders, Jews drink four cups of wine (or grape juice, for the children). The four cups represent the four matriarchs of the Jewish people: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah, Zirkind says. Rabbi Robert E. Ourach of Temple Beth Israel explains the meaning of the cups in a different way: the first drink is the cup of sanctification, the second the cup of redemption, the third the cup of blessing and the fourth as the cup of acceptance.

The Seder plate, which holds important ritual foods, may also show slight variations of ingredients. Haroset, for example, represents the mortar used by the enslaved Jews to make buildings for their masters. A typical Ashkenazi haroset will consist of apples, almonds, wine and sugar. Sephardic Jews will add ingredients such as dates, raisins, pomegranates and even coconut. During the Seders, many Jews combine the haroset with maror, sharp herbs such as romaine lettuce and horseradish that represent the bitterness of Jews’ lives in Egypt. Both are spread on matzo and eaten in a ritual created by Hillel the Elder, a renowned Jewish religious leader.

Some orthodox Jews, such as the Chabad, skip the haroset and simply eat bitter herbs and matzo. To add the haroset is to add water to the matzo, Zirkind explains. Also, without the sweetness of the haroset, the bitterness of the herbs (and of the Jews’ lives in Egypt), is more pronounced.

These differences are small and do not change the meal’s intent to remind Jews of their ancestors’ bondage in and deliverance from Egypt. Folks will eat a piece of onion, boiled potato or parsley dipped in saltwater, and think of the labor of 600,000 Jewish slaves, as well as their bitter tears.

They will look at the shank bone on the Seder plate and remember the pascal sacrifice: Jews painted lambs’ blood over the doors to their homes so God would pass over them while slaying the firstborn children and cattle of Egypt. Similarly, Seder participants will see the cooked egg on the Seder plate and remember the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. The egg symbolizes the festival sacrifices of the temple.

They will look at the three sheets of matzo on the Seder plate and think of the three types of Jews: the priests, the Levites and the Israelites. When Seder participants share the matzo, they form “the bond of fellowship,” Ourach says. It joins them with other Jews, and with “the deliverance of people from bondage everywhere.”

And they will end the Seders with the same wish: the hope that, next year, all Jews will be able to return to Jerusalem.

After the Seders, the more observant Jews will continue to keep hametz out of their homes. Many will eat foods such as haroset, and some will even bring haroset and matzo sandwiches to work, Ourach says. Others, such as the Chabad, will monitor everything they eat, including medicine. From a kosher perspective, medicine tablets normally aren’t a problem, Zirkind says. But during Passover, the corn-based starches in some of the tablets are forbidden. In these cases, it’s better to choose capsules.

“People keep different degrees of kosher all year long,” Ourach said. “For those who do it, it’s even more important during the holidays.”