To eat bread or to eat matzo, that is the question for Jews the world over starting Friday, the first night of Passover.
Of course, the Bible tells us we are not to eat bread or any leavened thing made of grain – not doughnuts, not pizza, not cupcakes – to commemorate the Jews fleeing Egypt and having no time for their bread to rise.
In place of the light and fluffy bread and sweet delights we’re accustomed to, Jews are commanded to eat matzo, a dense, unsalted cracker that in large amounts can wreak havoc on the digestion.
This dictate extends not just to the first Seder or even the second, but for the entire eight days of the holiday. So, do you, a busy American, give up those staples of our national diet – hamburger buns, breakfast muffins, egads, even pasta – or do you hew to a 3,200-year-old Biblical edict?
Me? I’m a coward. I fear that the moment I lift a forbidden treat to my mouth, the good Lord will strike me down on the spot. Really. I once checked into a Doubletree Hotel on the last day of Passover and famished, bit into the warm chocolate chip cookie it presents to its guests. My husband reminded me the holiday wasn’t over, and terrified, I spit it out.
Maybe there is no vengeful God, but I’m not chancing it.
After all, Passover is Judaism’s seminal holiday, recounting the story of the enslaved Jews decamping Egypt, an angry Pharaoh hot on their trail. This, despite God smiting the Egyptian people with lice and locusts, hail, darkness and the death of their livestock.
When Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, God killed the first-born in every household, including Pharaoh’s own son, but he passed over Jewish homes marked with the blood of a lamb. Then, he parted the Red Sea, drowned the tyrant and his army and sent the Jews to wander the desert for the next 40 years.
If that isn’t epic, nothing is. If you were looking for inspiration to reject wheat for the next eight days, there you have it.
“Why bother to refrain?” Martin Model, a psychotherapist and marvelous player of the mandolin asks. “Because the Bible says don’t do it.”
The board member at Durango’s lone synagogue, Har Shalom, concedes that he restrains himself primarily from wheat products and is tempted by the $25.99 sushi special around the corner from his brother’s California home, where he spends the holiday.
“I try not to eat bread. That makes sense to me,” he said.
But the Torah is not nearly so lenient. One is expected to keep kosher on Passover. (Most Jews don’t in their daily lives but do for the holiday.) That means no pork, no seafood and no mixing meat and dairy. Where Torah leaves off, tradition takes over, forbidding such everyday foods as legumes, beans and grains – you couldn’t find a green bean or a kernel of corn in my mother’s Passover kitchen if you tried.
And yet, somewhat perversely, Passover is known as the foodiest of Jewish celebrations. The true test of a Jewish cook is the food he or she prepares for this holiday. The challenge of making cakes rise, matzo balls float and breakfast of any kind calls to those of us responsible for our family’s daily bread, so to speak.
While we’re afflicting ourselves by eating the bread of our ancestors (better than the lash any day), we’re dreaming up tasty treats to get us through the week. So out come the recipes for matzo brei for breakfast, matzo-and-vegetable kugel for lunch and matzo stuffing for the roast turkey dinner.
Did anyone say dessert? Under the heading “Passover and holiday cooking” in my aunt’s ancient Sisterhood cookbook, 15 of 19 recipes are for Passover desserts. Nothing like a good challenge – just try making cakes and cookies from potato starch and ground cracker crumbs – to inspire us to new levels of creativity and subversive genius.
Finely ground matzo mixed with a starch like tapioca or potato stands in for cake flour; whipped egg whites replace commercial leaveners and those standards of all baking, butter and chocolate, grace everything from matzo toffee to macaroons.
“I use way more butter in matzo brittle than I ever would otherwise, and chocolate,” said Hilary Baskin, wife of Har Shalom’s rabbi, Eliot Baskin, pausing. “Lots of chocolate. But it’s Passover. You’re not having flour, so you can have this.”
Some bakers turn their attention to flourless tortes, well-known in the gluten-free world, but less appreciated by those who can consume wheat flour at will. The multi-talented Daniel Mogenstern, musician, boat captain and renowned cook, has no less than three recipes for flour-free cakes in his repertoire. One relies on finely ground almonds, another on mashed sweet potatoes and a third has no flour substitute at all, just a pound each of butter and chocolate, plus eight eggs. (Just say to yourself, “it’s Passover.”)
I’m already dreaming of making the orange-almond cake, even if it means boiling the fruit for hours and baking for almost an hour.
“What makes it wonderful is you can pour Cointreau on it,” he said with relish, sharing a baker’s love for all things spiked.
OK, we’ve got dessert covered, but what about eating a decent meal on the matzo diet? Truthfully, most of the adherents I spoke to use the substantial cracker in place of bread, sandwiching their favorite filling – from leftover chopped liver to tuna fish salad – in between.
Craig Larson, the county assessor and former president of Har Shalom, confesses he eats gefilte fish and matzo for lunch all week. He compares it to surviving on sparse fare while camping in the wild. He recalls participating in a Seder held under a massive stone arch in Moab, Utah. Barely 10 minutes after the long, ceremonious meal concluded, a strong wind blasted up the Colorado Valley, leaving sand in his teeth and his awe of God refreshed.
Rabbis tell us that the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzraim, means narrow place. To make Passover relevant today, Jews look for the narrow place in their own lives and seek a way to break out, to free themselves from a self-imposed slavery.
“It symbolizes that we just have to do it,” Larson said. “You have to grab the unleavened bread and go.”
That’s why we eat matzo, not bread, for the eight days of Passover.
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