Flavored matzo provokes questions

Every time her birthday falls during Passover, Melissa Hantman of Rochester, N.Y., stifles a sigh and looks for a palatable but permissible dessert to offer party guests.

Her spiritual stomachaches have given way to philosophical headaches lately, as the 27-year-old Reform Jew ponders whether the growing range of kosher-for-Passover delights somehow defeats the purpose of the weeklong holiday.

“The point of Passover food, I’ve always been taught, is to remember the hardships faced by the fleeing Israelites, so you eat matzo – the bread of affliction – instead of bread,” Hantman says.

“I have a nagging feeling that we’re getting off easy because it’s really not a diet of affliction anymore.”

Jews traditionally observe Passover (which begins April 2 this year) by adhering to strict dietary laws. They abstain from any foods containing leavening agents, remembering that bread did not have time to rise during their ancestors’ hurried escape from Egypt.

For thousands of years, the holiday’s dietary staple, matzo, was a simple cracker created by baking a flour-and-water mixture for 18 minutes.

But with kosher food producers like Manischewitz offering flavored varieties and seeking mainstream markets, consumers like Hantman are beginning to wonder: What happens when the biblical “bread of affliction” becomes a tasty treat?

From a theological perspective, rabbis say any product bearing the Orthodox Union’s Kosher for Passover stamp can be eaten anytime. But when it comes to matzo, most recommend sticking with the old-fashioned kind for the seder – the family meal on the first and second nights of Passover.

“It has to be regular matzo, it can’t be a flavor or all those shenanigans,” says Rabbi Menachem Genack, rabbinic administrator of the Kosher Division of the Orthodox Union, which oversees the status of food products worldwide.

Alternative side dishes and gourmet wines are always welcomed, he adds, though most rabbis would choose a wine with low alcohol content in light of the four glasses consumed during the seder.

Jeremy Fingerman, CEO of R.A.B. Food Group, which owns Manischewitz, said the company’s new matzo factory in Newark, N.J., will roll out experimental shapes, sizes and flavors next year.

Matzo is long overdue for a marketing makeover, not just a manufacturing one, says Fingerman, an Orthodox Jew.

“Matzo is called the bread of affliction, but it really was the bread of freedom,” he says. “Jews didn’t eat matzo when they were slaves, they ate it when they left. It was their first taste of freedom.”

Susie Fishbein, the Orthodox Jewish author of the “Kosher by Design” cookbook and a Manischewitz spokesperson, advises consumers to try mixing traditional and modern foods during Passover.

“It’s eight days, so there’s a lot of meals, and brisket and matzo ball soup isn’t going to be on every single menu,” she says. “What better way to dress up your grandmother’s gefilte fish than with a creamy wasabi horseradish sauce?”

The demand for ways to replicate year-round recipes has exploded, says Eileen Goltz, an Orthodox Jewish food writer known for her list of Passover baking ingredients, including substitutions for honey, confectioner’s sugar and baking chocolate.

“People are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to food. Passover food, they realize, doesn’t have to be bland, doesn’t have to be boring,” she says.

“Sure you’re restricted by ingredients, but it’s no more problematic than if you have diabetes or allergies.”