Thoughts on Holidays and Food

In many faiths, not just Judaism, people look forward to certain traditional foods that are customarily eaten on the holidays. In our tradition, each holiday has its own distinctive dishes and treats that add to the celebration.  Because the Jewish people are spread all around the globe, those holiday dishes often vary from one area of the world to another.  From time to time, we are awakened to those distinctions when we encounter our brethren from other places where the customs vary from what we are used to.  I recall one year hosting an Israeli cantor during the High Holidays whose family came from some Middle Eastern country.  We, in keeping with our own tradition of wishing one another a good and a sweet year, not only dipped apples in honey, but we served other sweet dishes as part of our holiday meal, tzimmes and honey cake among other items.  It seems that our guest’s palate was not attuned to so much sweetness.

Often the dishes which have become traditional are linked to various concepts emphasized by each holiday.  On Chanukah, when we celebrate the miracle of the oil, we look forward to potato pancakes, latkes fried in oil, to make the holiday complete.  Our Israeli coreligionists also celebrate the oil by deep-frying dough to make sufganiyot, jelly donuts, at this season.  When Shavuot comes in the early summer, dairy dishes are customary, particularly cheese blintzes, to which we add cheesecake and cheese pirogen and other dairy treats.  I can still see my mother flipping fifty or sixty crepes out of her frying pan, lining them up on dish towels on the kitchen table, getting them ready for their cheesy filling.  One wonders what came first the blintz or the tortured explanations for its predominance at this season.  The hamantasch on Purim is also a subject for interpretation and as I mentioned a couple of months ago, it and the latke have become the protagonists in debates on some college campuses around the country. 

Even a major fast day like Yom Kippur has its food traditions as well.  There are certain foods one is urged to avoid before beginning the fast, though the rabbis encourage us to eat well beforehand and taught that one who feasts on the 9th of Tishrei and fasts on the 10th, is considered as if he observed a two-day fast. Spicy and salty foods are to be avoided.  We usually have chicken soup with some of the soup chicken.  Of course, as soon as we hear the last shofar blast after Nei’ilah, it is time for a break-fast meal, usually fish and bagels and spreads.

I think, however, that Pesach, Passover, may be unique among our holidays in that it is actually a requirement of the Torah to eat certain foods and avoid others to mark the occasion, to recall our time in Egypt and the Exodus that took place at this season. On top of our year-round kashruth regulations, we add the prohibition of chametz, any leavened product, as well.  For Ashkenazi Jews, there are customarily a whole batch of additional prohibited foods under the rubric of “kitniyot.”  Even though the Conservative rabbinate has allowed people to eat rice, beans, peas, etc. that are in this category if they wish, since they are not actually chametz, tradition dies hard, and many choose to continue keeping the customary observance in place, though Sephardic Jews never followed it.

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No Passover celebration would be complete without matzah and maror (bitter herbs).  Originally these two items were adjuncts to the main dish on the holiday, the roasted paschal lamb.  The Torah tells us to eat the lamb with matzah and maror, the basis for the Hillel sandwich. In the absence of the sacrifices, we no longer sacrifice a lamb, but the matzah remains a requirement of the Torah and the maror is eaten as a rabbinic requirement in remembrance of the Temple.  To those two we add the charoset, a mixture of fruit and nuts generally to offset the bitter herbs.  Other customary foods include greens (karpas) dipped in salt water or vinegar and hardboiled eggs. My mother always served eggs in salt water as the first course of the dinner.  My wife’s family preferred to put the eggs in borscht.

My mother used to serve celery for karpas, now we use parsley instead.  Some people prefer boiled potatoes, a carryover from the northern regions of Europe where greens were not yet available this early in the season.  On the seder plate there are two items which we do not actually eat, a shank bone and a roasted egg.  These two items represent two sacrifices that were offered in Temple times, the paschal lamb and the chagigah, holiday offering.  When we look into it, we discover that the bone and the egg, were not necessarily the required items to represent those sacrifices.  The Talmud just requires us to have two “tavshilin” “cooked dishes” as a reminder of those ancient offerings.  Again, the meaning of each symbol is not limited to what we learned in Hebrew School and if we can add to the symbolism, that is encouraged.

So, if we have egg to start off with, our tradition calls for gefilte fish next.  Egg, fish, and meat create our own trinity of symbols recalling the siblings, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. We usually add a soup course, with matzah balls, kneidlach, in the chicken broth. For some traditional Jews, matzah balls have to wait until the eighth day of the holiday.  Any mixture of matzah with liquids is of concern to them, lest an unbaked portion of the matzah become chametz.  So for the first seven days, “gebrochts,” all those matzah concoctions that fill Passover cookbooks must wait in Chasidic households; potato starch must fill in.  On the eighth day which is doubtfully still Passover, the prohibition is lifted because we don’t worry about a doubtful occurrence on a doubtful day, what we call a s’fek s’feka.

Gebrochts is not a custom that I grew up with, so bring on those matzah balls and matzah rolls, and matzah kugels, etc, etc. and don’t forget the matzah brei in the morning. One might expect the main course to be lamb in keeping with the original requirement of a sacrificial paschal lamb.  Some communities do indeed serve lamb and others prohibit it lest we appear to be offering a sacrifice outside the Temple. Brisket and/or turkey seems to be the rule around these parts with various vegetable side dishes (avoiding kitniyot) or matzah concoctions or both. My mother always concluded the meal with compote to offset the binding effect of too much matzah.

Your family may do it all a bit differently. It has been suggested by some anthropologists that less important than what we put on the table to eat, may be the memories evoked by those special dishes, often of special people whom we recall.  How can we replace Aunt Esther’s home-made gefilte fish? My father’s mother, Grandma Pesha, passed away when I was still a baby, yet people continue to speak of her matzah balls which she insisted were “light as a fender.”  Who had the special recipe for chopped liver that was so good or for those gribenes served as an hors d’oeuvre?  My Mom used to make ingberlach for dessert on Pesach served with the compote, more matzah and nuts floating in honey. That dessert recalls the taiglach of Cousin Ida that made an appearance on Rosh Hashanah, dough ball with nuts and dried fruit floating in honey.

For some people, Passover is all about the songs, about the family getting together, and the special foods.  But let us also look around the table and remember those who are no longer with us, but whose memories and the tastes of their special treats linger among us. Our holidays are all about memories evoked through so many sensory cues. No wonder the traditional greeting of this season is Hob a zissen Paysach, have a sweet Passover. Indeed!

Chag sameach!