We leave an early Easter behind and approach a later-than-usual Passover season, thanks to different calendars and the assorted errors of Dionysius Exiguus, a sixth century monk who abandoned a perfectly functional Jewish lunar calendar that never was off by more than a few centuries for his own set of errors.
Late or not, supermarkets now convert a few of their aisles to Judaism. No prayers or yarmulkes or circumcisions,just mountains of matzoh and macaroons, pyramids of Mogen David and Manischewitz. (Israeli wines are miraculous,they’ve managed to turn wine into water.)
There’s a bodacious assortment of liquids and mixes known, generically but not always accurately, as “soup” and “matzoh balls.” Even coarse kosher salt from Morton.
What exactly is kosher for Passover? The short answer is kosher plus certification that none of the items have come into contact with anything forbidden during Passover: bread, beer, whiskey, other fun stuff.
Generally speaking, you can trust the symbols printed on the packages.
Anecdotally, a friend informs us that many years ago, when he was a teen working in a grocery store, the manager handed him a labeling gun and told him to mark everything in the store “kosher for Passover.” Detergent, brooms, pet food,the whole nine cubits, as they say. But he thankfully stopped short of the bacon.
Certainly the most recognizable Passover food, if that it can be called, is unleavened bread, matzoh, the “poor bread that our fathers ate” while rushing out of Egypt.
Today, however, the makers of matzoh ain’t poor.
The annual retail shootout between Manischewitz and Streits to sell the most unleavened bread ranks alongside Hertz versus Avis, American Express versus Visa and Bush versus that senator with the matzoh face.
A month before Passover the shelves fill with one-pound boxes shrink-wrapped in threes and fives. Half off. Sometimes more. The promotions offer up to $50,000 in product coupons or a chance to win a trip to Israel.
The stuff flies off the shelves like Israelites rushing through the Red Sea.
Then a week before Passover the stuff just sits. Everybody already has bought their matzoh, using Ralphs and Vons club cards.
But there’s no worry about the stuff growing stale. If you dug some of the original stuff out of the sand around Mount Sinai it probably would taste about the same as the current product.
Personally, I like matzoh. It’s crunchy and great with either cheap margarine or exotic jams and pat & #233;s. And it leaves a wonderful trail of crumbs should you need to find your way back to the kitchen for more. No self-respecting dog will beg for it, so one less nuisance. Nor will most non-Jews eat it, eliminating one point of conflict over who gets what in any mixed marriage.
Ultra Orthodox matzoh is notable for its resemblance to a 1960s space capsule that re-entered the atmosphere with a faulty heat shield. All other brands are visually indistinguishable once they’re out of their boxes.
And they all taste the same, or close to the same, despite manufacturers’ efforts to produce varieties in egg, onion, dried tomato, Mediterranean, unsalted and salted.
In the end, matzoh teaches us a valuable lesson.
When life changes, and you must change with it, keep a piece of the old, the simple, the trusted.
It’s good to have a box or two handy for the unexpected late-night flight.
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D.
Newport Beach
Blogs
A word on blogging: Ever since bloggers exposed Dan Rather’s false reporting incident last year, the importance and reach of blogging has continued to expand. But there is one disturbing trend in the blogosphere,anonymous bloggers.
If people post blogs with fictitious names and are unwilling to identify themselves, then they apparently fear being linked with what they are saying. This often could be because they have a conflict of interest, or simply because they know that what they are saying is not true. Blogging is a good thing for democracy because it gives us more information and serves as a balance to traditional media sources. But bloggers who hide behind a shield of anonymity cannot,and should not,be trusted.
John Campbell
State Senator
R-Irvine
Political Extremists
The sickening display of righteousness by lefties and particularly righties on TV may well have an effect on the next presidential election. Political zealots don’t understand that this kind of behavior brings out the best from the moderates of this country. We will only take so much bunk. Moderates control elections. It is certain the pendulum may have gone too far to the right at this time, and may be ready to teach Delay, et al, an overdue lesson.
If the democrats choose a moderate to run in 2008 (not Hillary), they will win in 2008. They can thank the disgusting displays of using poor Terri Schiavo’s plight, to push a private agenda.
Barry M. Gold
Irvine
