Edible, tangible memories of Passover

 Matzoh, unleavened bread, is eaten in place of bread during Passover to remind us that Hebrew slaves fled Egypt so quickly that their bread did not have time to rise.

Passover is a holiday full of symbolic foods to help recall the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. It’s a favorite holiday of most Jews, including secular ones, for its meaningful ritual and celebration of spring, life and freedom.  When I think that people have celebrated this holiday in this way for more than 2,000 years, it never fails to move me.

During the seder, a ritual meal, the story of the Exodus is retold using special foods on the seder plate as edible reminders. One of those foods is charoset (you don’t pronounce the “c” but it makes the “h” more guttural), a mixture of apples, nuts, wine and cinnamon that is said to represent the mortar the Hebrew slaves used in building structures for their taskmasters in ancient Egypt.

There are actually many varieties of charoset made around the world, some with sugar or honey, some with dates or other dried fruit, some cooked for a long time and some that look a lot more like mortar than my family’s version.

Ours is simple: Just mince apples and walnuts, add some sweet wine (yes, Manischewitz is traditional) and cinnamon.

Making the charoset this morning, I used this old-fashioned nut chopper with a spring, which I use only once a year. Actually there are two choppers, and I think the other, a double handled curving affair works better for the apples, I think. I inherited both from my mother.

Usually, I try to avoid cluttering my kitchen with things I use so seldom, but the nut choppers definitely get a pass. They are tangible reminders of my childhood, when my mother always gave me the pleasurable assignment of chopping the apples and nuts for charoset, using the special nut choppers and a wooden bowl.

How many apples and nuts, how much wine and cinnamon? There is no recipe; just do whatever seems right.

Memories flooded back as I chopped the sweet apples and walnuts with the springy nut chopper, and remembered all the things my parents did to prepare for Passover, as well as all the things they kept that we would use only once a year during the holiday.  Two complete sets of dishes (as they kept kosher and needed separate dishes for the holiday), two sets of silverware, pots and pans — we hauled all of these up from the basement in  a series of orchestrated loads, while my parents taped up the cabinets holding the usual dishes, pots and pans so they would be clearly off limits.

Anything from the rest of the year that had to be used during Passover was “kashered,” a ritual that captured our rapt attention on the night before the holiday. A giant pot, containing the items covered in water, was set in the middle of the kitchen floor, while my father heated a large stone on the kitchen burner until it turned blazing red. Then, handling it with tongs, he dropped it into the water. Sitting at a safe distance on the stairway steps, we watched with fascination as the water erupted into a furiously bubbling boil.

This was my favorite of the Passover plates, with an image of apple pickers!

I think my mother might have gotten these dishes with A & P Grocery store coupons. I used to like to try to count all the apples in the picture before or after eating.

Though I love bread and baked goods (as anyone who has read this blog knows) I enjoy the restrictions of Passover too–and all the edible and tangible memories it brings with it.

For a sweet treat–since one can’t make the usual pies, cakes and cookies–sometimes I make meringues, adding grated orange zest to the recipe below. I also often love making a chocolate nut torte, with no flour — a cake with a great history, which I’ve written about here.

And this year, I am bringing a fruit salad and some non-traditional but very popular matzo-toffee-crunch (click the link for a recipe) for dessert to Seder at a friend’s home.

Whatever you decide to make for Passover, it’s best not to get too stressed about a holiday that celebrates freedom. And I always try to find some calm and quiet moments to contemplate the Passover apple plate, and see if I can count all the apples…..

Note: This post was originally published in 2011 and edited and added to in 2018

Nut-and-chocolate-studded meringues
Makes about 25-30 — you can cut recipe in half if you like

• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into tiny cubes (or use chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees and lay a sheet of parchment paper (or aluminum foil) atop a cookie sheet, and lightly flour with matzo meal.

1. Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks; then add 1/2 cup of sugar, beating until whites are very shiny and gradually adding the rest of the sugar in two batches.
2. Fold in the nuts and the chocolate (and if you like, some grated orange rind), and spoon the mixture in mounds on the baking sheet, using about one tablespoon for each meringue. If you like, place a pecan or other nut half on top of each one (I didn’t do that).
3. Bake for 30 minutes; then reduce the oven to 250 degrees and bake another 30 minutes until firm and dry and easy to remove. Cool and store in an airtight container. If meringues become sticky, you can re-crisp them in a 200 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Edible, tangible memories of Passover

 Matzoh, unleavened bread, is eaten in place of bread during Passover to remind us that Hebrew slaves fled Egypt so quickly that their bread did not have time to rise.

Passover is a holiday full of symbolic foods to help recall the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. It’s a favorite holiday of most Jews, including secular ones, for its meaningful ritual and celebration of spring, life and freedom.  When I think that people have celebrated this holiday in this way for more than 2,000 years, it never fails to move me.

During the seder, a ritual meal, the story of the Exodus is retold using special foods on the seder plate as edible reminders. One of those foods is charoset (you don’t pronounce the “c” but it makes the “h” more guttural), a mixture of apples, nuts, wine and cinnamon that is said to represent the mortar the Hebrew slaves used in building structures for their taskmasters in ancient Egypt.

There are actually many varieties of charoset made around the world, some with sugar or honey, some with dates or other dried fruit, some cooked for a long time and some that look a lot more like mortar than my family’s version.

Ours is simple: Just mince apples and walnuts, add some sweet wine (yes, Manischewitz is traditional) and cinnamon.

Making the charoset this morning, I used this old-fashioned nut chopper with a spring, which I use only once a year. Actually there are two choppers, and I think the other, a double handled curving affair works better for the apples, I think. I inherited both from my mother.

Usually, I try to avoid cluttering my kitchen with things I use so seldom, but the nut choppers definitely get a pass. They are tangible reminders of my childhood, when my mother always gave me the pleasurable assignment of chopping the apples and nuts for charoset, using the special nut choppers and a wooden bowl.

How many apples and nuts, how much wine and cinnamon? There is no recipe; just do whatever seems right.

Memories flooded back as I chopped the sweet apples and walnuts with the springy nut chopper, and remembered all the things my parents did to prepare for Passover, as well as all the things they kept that we would use only once a year during the holiday.  Two complete sets of dishes (as they kept kosher and needed separate dishes for the holiday), two sets of silverware, pots and pans — we hauled all of these up from the basement in  a series of orchestrated loads, while my parents taped up the cabinets holding the usual dishes, pots and pans so they would be clearly off limits.

Anything from the rest of the year that had to be used during Passover was “kashered,” a ritual that captured our rapt attention on the night before the holiday. A giant pot, containing the items covered in water, was set in the middle of the kitchen floor, while my father heated a large stone on the kitchen burner until it turned blazing red. Then, handling it with tongs, he dropped it into the water. Sitting at a safe distance on the stairway steps, we watched with fascination as the water erupted into a furiously bubbling boil.

This was my favorite of the Passover plates, with an image of apple pickers!

I think my mother might have gotten these dishes with A & P Grocery store coupons. I used to like to try to count all the apples in the picture before or after eating.

Though I love bread and baked goods (as anyone who has read this blog knows) I enjoy the restrictions of Passover too–and all the edible and tangible memories it brings with it.

For a sweet treat–since one can’t make the usual pies, cakes and cookies–sometimes I make meringues, adding grated orange zest to the recipe below. I also often love making a chocolate nut torte, with no flour — a cake with a great history, which I’ve written about here.

And this year, I am bringing a fruit salad and some non-traditional but very popular matzo-toffee-crunch (click the link for a recipe) for dessert to Seder at a friend’s home.

Whatever you decide to make for Passover, it’s best not to get too stressed about a holiday that celebrates freedom. And I always try to find some calm and quiet moments to contemplate the Passover apple plate, and see if I can count all the apples…..

Note: This post was originally published in 2011 and edited and added to in 2018

Nut-and-chocolate-studded meringues
Makes about 25-30 — you can cut recipe in half if you like

• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into tiny cubes (or use chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees and lay a sheet of parchment paper (or aluminum foil) atop a cookie sheet, and lightly flour with matzo meal.

1. Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks; then add 1/2 cup of sugar, beating until whites are very shiny and gradually adding the rest of the sugar in two batches.
2. Fold in the nuts and the chocolate (and if you like, some grated orange rind), and spoon the mixture in mounds on the baking sheet, using about one tablespoon for each meringue. If you like, place a pecan or other nut half on top of each one (I didn’t do that).
3. Bake for 30 minutes; then reduce the oven to 250 degrees and bake another 30 minutes until firm and dry and easy to remove. Cool and store in an airtight container. If meringues become sticky, you can re-crisp them in a 200 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Edible, tangible memories of Passover

 Matzoh, unleavened bread, is eaten in place of bread during Passover to remind us that Hebrew slaves fled Egypt so quickly that their bread did not have time to rise.

Passover is a holiday full of symbolic foods to help recall the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. It’s a favorite holiday of most Jews, including secular ones, for its meaningful ritual and celebration of spring, life and freedom.  When I think that people have celebrated this holiday in this way for more than 2,000 years, it never fails to move me.

During the seder, a ritual meal, the story of the Exodus is retold using special foods on the seder plate as edible reminders. One of those foods is charoset (you don’t pronounce the “c” but it makes the “h” more guttural), a mixture of apples, nuts, wine and cinnamon that is said to represent the mortar the Hebrew slaves used in building structures for their taskmasters in ancient Egypt.

There are actually many varieties of charoset made around the world, some with sugar or honey, some with dates or other dried fruit, some cooked for a long time and some that look a lot more like mortar than my family’s version.

Ours is simple: Just mince apples and walnuts, add some sweet wine (yes, Manischewitz is traditional) and cinnamon.

Making the charoset this morning, I used this old-fashioned nut chopper with a spring, which I use only once a year.

Usually, I try to avoid cluttering my kitchen with things I use so seldom, but the nut chopper definitely gets a pass. It’s a tangible reminder of my childhood, when my mother always gave me the pleasurable assignment of chopping the apples and nuts for charoset, using the special nut chopper and a wooden bowl.

How many apples and nuts, how much wine and cinnamon? There is no recipe; just do whatever seems right.

Memories flooded back as I chopped the sweet apples and walnuts with the springy nut chopper, and remembered all the things my parents did to prepare for Passover, as well as all the things they kept that we would use only once a year during the holiday.  Two complete sets of dishes (as they kept kosher and needed separate dishes for the holiday), two sets of silverware, pots and pans — we hauled all of these up from the basement in  a series of orchestrated loads, while my parents taped up the cabinets holding the usual dishes, pots and pans so they would be clearly off limits.

Anything from the rest of the year that had to be used during Passover was “kashered,” a ritual that captured our rapt attention on the night before the holiday. A giant pot, containing the items covered in water, was set in the middle of the kitchen floor, while my father heated a large stone on the kitchen burner until it turned blazing red. Then, handling it with tongs, he dropped it into the water. Sitting at a safe distance on the stairway steps, we watched with fascination as the water erupted into a furiously bubbling boil.

This was my favorite of the Passover plates, with an image of apple pickers!

I think my mother might have gotten these dishes with A & P Grocery store coupons. I used to like to try to count all the apples in the picture before or after eating.

Though I love bread and baked goods (as anyone who has read this blog knows) I enjoy the restrictions of Passover too–and all the edible and tangible memories it brings with it.

For a sweet treat today–since one can’t make the usual pies, cakes and cookies–I made some meringues, adding grated orange zest to the recipe below.

The meringues are simple, though they take some time to bake. But that just gave me some extra moments to contemplate the Passover apple plate, and see if I could count all the apples…..

Note: This post was originally published in 2011.

Nut-and-chocolate-studded meringues
Makes about 25-30 — you can cut recipe in half if you like

• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into tiny cubes (or use chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees and lay a sheet of parchment paper (or aluminum foil) atop a cookie sheet, and lightly flour with matzo meal.

1. Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks; then add 1/2 cup of sugar, beating until whites are very shiny and gradually adding the rest of the sugar in two batches.
2. Fold in the nuts and the chocolate (and if you like, some grated orange rind), and spoon the mixture in mounds on the baking sheet, using about one tablespoon for each meringue. If you like, place a pecan or other nut half on top of each one (I didn’t do that).
3. Bake for 30 minutes; then reduce the oven to 250 degrees and bake another 30 minutes until firm and dry and easy to remove. Cool and store in an airtight container. If meringues become sticky, you can re-crisp them in a 200 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Beets and potatoes (and grandmothers from Russia)

A few days ago, I was talking on the phone with my cousin Yael–an Israeli, though she’s lived in the United States for decades now–about the traditional foods we had on Passover.

Our grandmothers were sisters — from the village of Shumsk (or Szumsk) in Russia (though sometimes the region was part of Poland and currently it’s part of the Ukraine) — and Yael and I discovered that both of us grew up with potatoes on the seder plate, either instead of parsley or alongside it. Why? Because in Russia (or Poland or Ukraine or whatever) there were no fresh vegetables growing in April.

I found radishes at the farmers market here, but it might still be too early for them in the Ukraine. Or Russia. Or Poland.

Passover foods generally involve a lot of potatoes, but beets are also traditional, especially for Jews from Eastern Europe, as it was another root vegetable available in early spring.

Yael told me about a sweet-sour beet salad she makes for Passover, and that reminded me of beet borscht. On Passover, my mother always served it a special way with an egg whipped in the soup tureen, turning the borscht from wine-red to a frothy deep rose color. Yael’s family made it that way too, she said.

Baba (Edess Kanfer Arshack)

My mother told me that her mother (my Baba) always made rossel (or rossl or rosel), which is sour or fermented beets, a kind of starter for genuine beet borscht.  She started the fermentation six weeks before Passover, putting cleaned and peeled chunks of beets in an earthenware crock and covering them with water, checking every few days. The women neighbors in Rock Island, Illinois, where my mother’s family lived, would come to the house and take a cupful of Baba’s rossel so they could make their own borscht.

Looking around the Internet, I noticed a couple of things about rossel. For a long while it fell out of favor as it takes quite a bit of planning and some attention. (Even my mother, who kept so many food traditions, never made it.) Plus people’s tastes had changed and sour fermented beets didn’t sound so appealing –although kosher dill pickles, which are fermented cucumbers, never lost their fans.

But recently, it’s having a bit of a come-back (though one couldn’t exactly call it a resurgence) as fermented foods are becoming more popular. Now I am seriously thinking of making rossel next year (my Jewish cookbook says three or four weeks ahead is sufficient), and perhaps some of my trusty readers will try it too. As Levy‘s bakery famously said, “You don’t have to be Jewish . . .”

In the meantime, I tried Yael’s beet salad with lemon juice and a touch of sugar, which captured the flavors of our shared history.

It made me think of the freedom our grandparents found when they left the Old Country, and that, along with the marvelous color, made me happy.

The ship that my grandmother took to America

Sweet-and-sour beet salad

Yael boils the beets. I baked them, wrapped tightly in tin foil, on a cookie sheet. Either way, if they’re large, they’ll take a while.

(By the way, I first removed the beet greens and steamed them, for another use. Don’t throw them away!)

When the beets are cool, you peel them and grate them. I think next time, I will under-bake them just a little. These were a bit too soft.

Once they’re grated, add lemon juice, sugar (I’d go easy on that) and a little salt, to taste.
There are many ways you could serve this salad, of course, but I thought it looked nice against the green of romaine lettuce leaves. You could fold the leaves around the salad and eat it as a finger food. It looks like a new Passover tradition for me!

For more on beets: A valentine vegetable

For more about Passover:
Edible, tangible memory
A cake for all seasons
Time for quinoa

 

Edible, tangible memory

Matzoh, unleavened bread, is eaten in place of bread during Passover to remind us that Hebrew slaves fled Egypt so quickly that their bread did not have time to rise.

Passover is a holiday full of symbolic foods to help recall the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. It’s a favorite holiday of most Jews, including secular ones, for its meaningful ritual and celebration of spring, life and freedom.  When I think that people have celebrated this holiday in this way for more than 2,000 years, it never fails to move me.

During the seder, a ritual meal, the story of the Exodus is retold using special foods on the seder plate as edible reminders. One of those foods is charoset (you don’t pronounce the “c” but it makes the “h” more guttural), a mixture of apples, nuts, wine and cinnamon that is said to represent the mortar the Hebrew slaves used in building structures for their taskmasters in ancient Egypt.

There are actually many varieties of charoset made around the world, some with sugar or honey, some with dates or other dried fruit, some cooked for a long time and some that look a lot more like mortar than my family’s version.

Ours is simple: Just mince apples and walnuts, add some sweet wine (yes, Manischewitz is traditional) and cinnamon.

Making the charoset this morning, I used this old-fashioned nut chopper with a spring, which I use only once a year.

Usually, I try to avoid cluttering my kitchen with things I use so seldom, but the nut chopper definitely gets a pass. It’s a tangible reminder of my childhood, when my mother always gave me the pleasurable assignment of chopping the apples and nuts for charoset, using the special nut chopper and a wooden bowl.

How many apples and nuts, how much wine and cinnamon? There is no recipe; just do whatever seems right.

Memories flooded back as I chopped the sweet apples and walnuts with the springy nut chopper, and remembered all the things my parents did to prepare for Passover, as well as all the things they kept that we would use only once a year during the holiday.  Two complete sets of dishes (as they kept kosher and needed separate dishes for the holiday), two sets of silverware, pots and pans — we hauled all of these up from the basement in  a series of orchestrated loads, while my parents taped up the cabinets holding the usual dishes, pots and pans so they would be clearly off limits.

Anything from the rest of the year that had to be used during Passover was “kashered,” a ritual that captured our rapt attention on the night before the holiday. A giant pot, containing the items covered in water, was set in the middle of the kitchen floor, while my father heated a large stone on the kitchen burner until it turned blazing red. Then, handling it with tongs, he dropped it into the water. Sitting at a safe distance on the stairway steps, we watched with fascination as the water erupted into a furiously bubbling boil.

This was my favorite of the Passover plates, with an image of apple pickers!

I think my mother might have gotten these dishes with A & P Grocery store coupons. I used to like to try to count all the apples in the picture before or after eating.

Though I love bread and baked goods (as anyone who has read this blog knows) I enjoy the restrictions of Passover too–and all the edible and tangible memories it brings with it.

For a sweet treat today–since one can’t make the usual pies, cakes and cookies–I made some meringues, adding grated orange zest to the recipe below.

The meringues are simple, though they take some time to bake. But that just gave me some extra moments to contemplate the Passover apple plate, and see if I could count all the apples…..

Nut-and-chocolate-studded meringues
Makes about 25-30 — you can cut recipe in half if you like

• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into tiny cubes (or use chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees and lay a sheet of parchment paper (or aluminum foil) atop a cookie sheet, and lightly flour with matzo meal.

1. Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks; then add 1/2 cup of sugar, beating until whites are very shiny and gradually adding the rest of the sugar in two batches.
2. Fold in the nuts and the chocolate (and if you like, some grated orange rind), and spoon the mixture in mounds on the baking sheet, using about one tablespoon for each meringue. If you like, place a pecan or other nut half on top of each one (I didn’t do that).
3. Bake for 30 minutes; then reduce the oven to 250 degrees and bake another 30 minutes until firm and dry and easy to remove. Cool and store in an airtight container. If meringues become sticky, you can re-crisp them in a 200 degree oven for 30 minutes.