Friday, March 29, 2024 -
Print Edition

Chametz parties!

Passover is bookended by two very similar parties – both revolving around chametz. The first chametz party, starts the night before Passover and may even continue into the morning of, depending how organized and/or efficient one is. Basically the less organized you are, the more your pre-Passover chametz party will consist of various rag-tag leftover and ill-portioned items: one bowl of cereal, a heel of bread, random pasta concoction created out of your fridge’s remaining, less-desired, ingredients. The more efficient among us will have pre-booked a table long ago at a pizzeria or the like, to relish that last taste of freshly baked yeasted bread.

The post-Passover chametz party is one focused more around fantasy and salivation. What’s that food you’ve found yourself dreaming about for eight long days? It makes perfect sense that most people tend to zero in on the direct opposite of chametz – bread, or bread-like items. Bagels are a classic, complete with lox and shmear dotted with capers. Another is doughnuts, yeasty deep-fried goodness. In other words, those items, that no matter how many eggs and how much matzah meal, cannot be duplicated in a kosher for P kitchen. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, I think I’ll “break” Pesach on a nice bowl of spaghetti with meat sauce – because it’s not bread. Another post-Passover favorite is breakfast cereal, which, though not bread-like, is extremely difficult to replicate.

So now the big question: What bit of chametz were you fantasizing about throughout Pesach? And on what did you “break” your Passover? Or, are you the nostalgic type that actually continues to munch on matzah and butter, long after the kosher for Passover for dishes are boxed up and back in the attic for their year-long hibernation? (Full disclosure: for lunch today I had matzah brei!)

Over on our Facebook page, most people seem to be going for the classics, although a gluten-free fan opted for rice noodles as her post-Passover treat.

What was yours?

Read our earlier posts about chametz parties here and here



Avatar photo

IJN Assistant Publisher | [email protected]


3 thoughts on “Chametz parties!

  1. Food Lover

    I wouldn’t mind keeping with matza and being less stressed to complete the clean up in one evening, but my kids won’t stand for more matza, so hubs goes out to pick up some cereal for the morning. We kind of experienced deja vu this morning though, because we were eating our cereal out of plastic bowls, just like on erev Pesach! The kitchen wasn’t turned over yet…

    Reply

Leave a Reply