It's The Feeling Not the Food

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While the Israelites may have fled with unleavened bread to hasten their departure, finding Matzos these days requires significant preplanning. I would have thought that by now I’d know how much Matzo our household would consume during Passover and be prepared by buying it all in advance. But no, I remain a just-in-time shopper, and consequently we are down to our last morsel of Matzo with Passover not even half over. Scouring the shelves of two different supermarket chains brought no signs of unleavened bread beyond the bagger at the check out commenting that ‘the stock was looking pretty low yesterday so we’re probably all out by now.”

Oh well, if our menu doesn’t provide sufficient reminders of the Exodus, then perhaps I can recreate the feeling of the Exodus with my last minute preparations. While my mother-in-law is the consummate prepared hostess, my food planning is consistently last minute. So when I still hadn’t made the brisket the morning of Passover, even though my mother-in-law's recipe clearly recommends making it the night before in order to simplify dinner preparations, my walking partner suggested instead that I could recreate the mood of the Israelites grabbing what provisions they could as they headed out in haste. I mean really, were any of them writing up their shopping lists days in advance in order to allow their meat to rest overnight for optimum taste? This sounded like just the plan I needed to make my Passover dinner work.

You see, I have only hosted a handful of Passover dinners, and just as the first three Christmas trees my husband set up in the early years of our marriage crashed to the floor in the middle of the night, my Passover meals have been somewhat less than traditional. For instance, the first Passover I hosted, I drew upon the traditional Thanksgiving dinners I had grown up with, for in essence, Passover is both a remembrance and a giving of thanks. So I dutifully made every recipe listed in my Passover book, set the seder plate, and then, before calling everyone to the table, set the table with the steaming how dishes of brisket and kugel and beans—thankfully I at least knew enough to not make biscuits. Not only did the food all grow cold while we read through the Haggadah, but we could hardly hear one another over the growling of our stomachs as the aromas curled around our empty plates and our eyes drank in the feast set before us.

Several years later as I was shopping for Matzos, I found the end cap at the grocery stocked full with Manischewitz Matzos. Upon closer review, I noticed that every box had a large orange ‘unsalted’ banner plastered across the front. Was this what I was supposed to buy? Would everyone notice and wonder why I hadn’t tailed a Jewish shopper around the store to find the regular Matzos for those in the know? Confused, but not heading home without Matzos, I put a box in my cart. My husband found my confusion amusing, “They never have salt,” he told me, “must just be a new marketing tactic for health conscious consumers.”

So next year I’ll know not to put the serving dishes on the table when we sit down, that all matzos are unsalted and that I need to purchase all the matzos I’ll need well before Passover. I wonder what new lesson will come my way.