Pesach, Food and Customs
Tina Wasserman
It is my custom to shop for Passover goods late at night. In the day time I can add an extra hour to my shopping excursion because of the constant interruptions from fellow shoppers with burning Passover cooking questions. I love to help but my attention is already easily diverted from my own shopping just looking at the myriad manufactured permutations of common foods to conform to the laws of Passover. I have thought about the questions I am frequently asked in those supermarket aisles so here are my thoughts on the culinary “four Questions” that I am often queried. My first two answers were bolstered by the responsum found in Reform Responsa for the Twenty-First Century (NY: CCAR, 2010), vol. 1, pp. 65-76 edited by Rabbi Mark Washofsky.
Chametz versus Kitniyot:
Chametz traditionally refers to wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt. Matzoh may be made from them but they may not be used in any other form during Passover. Rice and legumes may NOT be used to make Matzoh and therefore they should, according to the Talmud, be allowed to be consumed. So what happened???
The minhag, or custom, of forbidding rice and any other small grains gained a large following in the Thirteenth century when two French Rabbis, Rabbi Yitzchak of Corbeil and Rabbi Manoach of Narbonne suggested that the custom of refraining from eating Kitniyot (small grains or seeds that resemble the 5 forbidden grains), although not widely observed, was important because there was no guarantee that a grain of wheat didn’t infiltrate the storage bin of rice and if a porridge was made of Kitniyot how would the average observer know that it wasn’t made from chametz. So, even though the great Rabbis (including Rashi)preceding these two Talmudic scholars didn’t subscribe to their dictates, many of the Ashkenzim followed the minhag. When the Reform movement was born in Europe they suggested that this custom was burdensome and unnecessary so, in 1810 they suggested its abolishment. The orthodox rabbis saw this as a threat to the sanctity of the minhag and declared it to be law because if created a “fence” around the law to fortify its ruling.
Today minhag is hard to dissolve and, although I experiment with new recipes all the time, rice still hasn’t made it on to my Passover menus. The choice is yours.
Kosher for Passover Baking Powder:
When I was in college baking powder and baking soda were ALWAYS classified leavening agents! So when I noticed that all the prepared mixes from matzo ball to muffins to cookies had BP in it I started to ask all the head rabbis in all the major cities where I lived, “How come?”. Most said they were chemicals and therefore ok. I didn’t buy that reason because they were leavening the product through their use. The truth is that only the five grains that could leaven themselves through fermentation are prohibited so it’s allowed. My question to my friendly supermarket interlopers, however, is why are you focusing on all this baking for Passover when, for the most part, during the year you hardly bake? A question, certainly, for all of us.
Is There a Secret to Peeling Eggs Without Mangling Them?
First buy grade A not AA eggs and buy them a few weeks before Passover. They are still very fresh but the egg white begins to separate from the membrane of the shell and after it is cooked in salted water (to make the shell more brittle) it is much easier to peel (under running water) and your egg comes out smooth and pretty!
How Do I Have a Smooth-Running Seder That Doesn’t Take Hours?
Rather than spending time passing the salt water and the Charoset (which invariably knocks over someone’s wine glass onto your Mother’s good tablecloth!) Each place setting should have a small bowl containing the hard boiled egg (sliced to make it easier to eat, colorful, and camouflages any of the eggs that didn’t make it successfully through the process above) and some salt water. This bowl is placed on a 7 or 9 inch plate (plastic is fine) with a piece of Moror, some parsley or other green, and a dollop of Charoset. You can have additional bowls of Charoset around the table but this simple presentation saves at least 20 minutes which could be used for additional story telling or readings.
Follow the minhags you choose to embrace and enjoy re-telling the story of our deliverance from freedom.
Eat in Good Health!
Tina Wasserman is the author of Entrée to Judaism, a Culinary Exploration of the Jewish Diaspora published by the URJ Press. Tina is trained in Foods and Nutrition and has taught her love and understanding of cooking and Jewish culinary history to audiences in synagogues and Jewish organizations throughout North America and Europe. She is also the food columnist for Reform Judaism Magazine and serves on the URJ Camp Newman board in California. She lives in Dallas, Texas and is a member of Temple Emanu-El.
