This blog post was written by Delicious guide Haysha Shatzman, who was brewing his own beer, making his sourdough bread loaves and fermenting things of all kinds before it was cool.
I have a bachelor's degree in Jewish History and Psychology, which you may think don’t overlap much, and usually you’d be right. But every so often, the stars align while guiding people through the markets of Tel Aviv and Jaffa on Delicious Israel culinary walking tours, where between bites, I get to psychoanalyze the history of the Jewish people through their food. I get to explore this history through Israeli food - where they overlap, where they diverge, and how to piece this story together. On tours, we literally eat our way through history, unpacking foods like the Jaffa Orange (the first food brand of modern Israel!) into no less than a revolutionary force.
Modern Israel (and its cuisine) is an eclectic mosaic of immigrant cultures from around the Jewish diaspora. With all of the different varieties of Israeli food, it can be easy to forget what we have in common. One element of Israeli cuisine shared by many of its inhabitants is the influence of Jewish holidays on traditional foods. This can range from special cooking techniques to eat delicious food on the Jewish sabbath when cooking is forbidden - think of Ashkenazi cholent or Yemenite jachnun, two foods that are left to cook all night. We also have special foods surrounding annual holidays, and these can change based on cultures too. In keeping with the tradition of eating foods cooked with oil on this holiday, North African Jews enjoy a fried donut called sfenj while Ashkenazi Jews enjoy latkes, potato pancakes. It is very rare that a custom transcends all of these different types of cuisine, but a few do. Enter: matzah. The legendary “bread” of the Passover holiday.
Introducing: matzah. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The story of Israeli cuisine is always interesting, but in this author’s opinion, matzah is a glaring exception to that deliciousness. This flatbread is prohibited from rising (I’ll explain why soon!) and is more of a cracker than a bread. Both in looks and taste, it resembles cardboard more than something you’d want to put in your mouth. Once you do take a bite, you’re struck by its utter blandness - by Jewish law, no salt can be added to the process - and no matter what you put on it for some moisture (butter, jam, chocolate and date honey are just a few options) it will not let go of your teeth. While now you can find matzah in varieties such as chocolate, egg, spelt, organic and gluten-free - you name it - we’re going to be going back to basics.
If I had to explain it to you on a food tour, I’d be stumped. I really wish I could just say it’s an acquired taste adored by a specific demographic, a Yemenite hilbeh (fenugreek condiment) of sorts. The truth is that no one really likes it, definitely not on it’s own. Try and think if you’ve ever walked in on someone casually eating a plain piece of matzah when it wasn’t the seder night. You can’t, because such an event has never occurred.
And here’s the rub, I couldn’t pass-over (my only pun, I promise) matzah on a tour because no food even comes close to having the same level of religious-cultural significance. It is the only food with a biblical commandment to be eaten every year and the recipe has gone on unchanged for three millennia! The entire holiday of Passover is sometimes referred to as Chag Hamatzot (The holiday of matzahs) - Which begs the question - why?!
A handbaked matzah - courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
A quick Google search will quote the biblical narrative of the Exodus story where the Israelites, leaving Egypt in such haste in search of the Promised Land, didn’t have time for their bread to rise, forcing them to eat matzah. Eating unleavened bread does seem appropriate to commemorate the event, but I wouldn’t name the holiday of the exodus after the nation's poorly timed baked goods. I think there’s more to this ancient bread.
After rereading the story over the years, I began to think that perhaps matzah is the first recording of a “food memory.” That feeling you get when your senses collide with a past experience, almost transporting you through time. As a culinary guide, I’ve seen people go back to their childhoods when tasting an Israeli strawberry or that summer on a kibbutz in ‘79. The difference here is that this is a collective memory is intended to cross over generations. Matzah becomes a symbol in the story and an edible reminder.
From a culinary perspective, the whole origin story of the Jewish nation can be viewed as a type of matzah sandwich. Let me explain. The first side of matzah represents the Jews leaving Egypt as newly freed slaves, with the first thing they eat as free men being matzah. During the 40-year trek through the desert, they were promised a land flowing with milk and honey but the first thing they eat, again, is matzah - the second side of our sandwich. In between those episodes - the sandwich filling, if you will - is a group of freed slaves that became a nation. Matzah symbolizes the transition of a people who know what it means to come from nothing and find freedom. To eat matzah is to be free, but to also remember slavery so intimately that we shouldn’t take our freedom for granted.
I still can’t recommend its taste, but it tells a great story.
P.S.- if you are intrigued and want to eat matzah straight, try putting it in a preheated oven for 5 minutes. It tastes a bit lighter and doesn’t stick to your teeth as much :)
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