What should I prepare for the Passover dinner?

Q: What is your Passover tradition, if any? What is the traditional Passover dinner? Please let me know your experiences and suggestions. Thank you in advance. :)

A: First of all, anything with chametz is out. "Chametz" (leavened grain) is defined as wheat, barely, oats, rye, or spelt that has been in contact with water for more then 18 minutes. Or anything that's been cooked with chametz. Or made in a pot that was used to cook chametz. Observant Jews have to scrub down their kitchens, buy special foods, and use special dishes. Next, are you/your Jewish friends of Europian or oriental/mideastern ancestry? Europian (Ashkenazic) Jews don't eat "kitniyot", certain foods that might get confused with chametz, such as rice, corn, and peas. Non-Europian Jews have no problem with kitniyot. The must-haves for every Seder are matza (unleavened bread), wine or grape juice (enough for everyone to drink four cups), bitter herbs (horseradish or romaine lettuce), charoset (a dip made mainly from wine, cinnomen, and apples), and fresh herbs to be dipped in salt water (my family uses parsely). Beyond that, you can do whatever you want. If you feel like, you could have a vegetarian Seder, or a Chinese food-style Seder. My family eats a pretty traditional meat meal. There's chicken soup, and matza balls, and some kind of chicken. There's probably a brisket in there somewhere. I'm Ashkenazic, but my rabbi let my family eat kitnoyot for health reasons, so there's a lot of rice. And there's a lot of ordinary (but chametz-free) dishes that I can't think of at the moment. And there's some absolutely awful chocholate or jelly-filled dessert at the end. For the rest of Passover, I recommend matza pizza. I basically live on matza pizza for the week..

Related items