My mother is from the secular socialist side of the Jewish diaspora, and my father is an old line New England Yankee who believes all those stories in the Weekly World News about aliens, so I never attend a proper Passover Seder until I was about 30. Well, I just came back from one. It was of a sort of constructed family, so there no 3 people who were actually of a single family, as genetically defined, but the same effect was none the less achieved. There were some folks I was delighted to see and some I never want to see again, but the food was uniformly excellent in quality and excessive in quantity.
i love seders - matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, hard boiled eggs, boiled potatos... and thats all before dinner! my bubbie always makes baked chicken and stuffed cabbage YUM YUM - plus its always hilarious when the kids get a little nip of the wine
I'd have to say that tsimmis is my favorite. There's nothing quite like desert as part of the main course.
latkes (i think that's how you spell it), i like those. i don't know if its a Passover thing or not, but i had some around hannukah once i think.
Like everything else that isn't on the Seder Plate, latkes are only Passover specific in that most recipes contain no levening (sp?) of any kind. Potato latkes are pretty reliable, even from a mix. One time, my wife made some with (I think) yam and parsnip that were simply out of this world. One the other hand, if you ever see latkes made with matzoh meal, get out of there, fast.
Re: Kitniyot As might be expected, we were all from ashkenazi roots, so there wasn't a bean in sight. I do recall reading somewhere about some very interesting sephardic Passover recipes with legumes. Is rice Kitniyot?
Re: Kitniyot Which is kind of funny considering that most of the time when I heard 'chametz' Tuesday night, it sounded like 'humous'.
i guess you should try it out - my dad eats grape jam on them, which i never care for much unless they are very thin and crispy - but i've seen people put many different toppings - i dont make them often but the last time i put little bits of colby and ham inside (and yes i realize the irony)
I have a cousin who makes baked "gefilte" fish out of salmon. They are so amazingly good. She serves them hot, so you miss out on the whole cold fish-log aspect (no big loss in my book). What's strange to me is that they are the only thing she can cook that doesn't taste awful.
I think that gefilte fish is best regarded as a device for separating the matzoh and the horse radish.
Are you still keeping kosher for passover today? If not, you aren't a masochist. I made it until Thursday night, then I had to get some normal food (burritos and beer) to clear the lump of matzo out of my gut.
Why is this night different then all others? Israelis only have two more days of Passover. Everyone else has three. Still going strong on my Passover, no real urge for hametz. But I am planning what to break my Passover on Monday night.
I'm not observant, so if I kept kosher for any of the 284 days of Passover since I was born, it was entirely by accident.
I had the biggest freakin sub sandwich Tuesday night. It was like Subway started selling crack. I just couldn't stop.