[mezzaluna]

Whether you're cooking for your own Passover seder or preparing the meal for others, what's on the menu this year? What traditions do you cherish?

I will be making one meal and coordinating with a caterer for a community seder. At home my menu will be very traditional Eastern European: hardboiled eggs, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, roast turkey with matzo stuffing (made with schmaltz if I'm ambitious enough), mashed potatoes and asparagus. Desserts will be almond macaroons (French-style, not the coconut ones), mock oatmeal cookies and fresh fruit.

I wouldn't think of having a turkey without the matzo stuffing, nor Passover without the mock oatmeal cookies.

 

[coolj]

Well, here in BC, Turkey is pretty much out of the question, Bird Flu. I'm probably going to cook a roast of lamb.

 

[chrose]

Pretty traditional and boring, but delicious here. Chicken soup w/ matzoh balls, Charoses, Gefilte fish, Horseradish, Matzoh and Boiled Chicken. Almond Macaroons too! :lips:

 

[phoebe]

Ours was fairly Eastern European traditional too with everything Chrose had except we had brisket rather than chicken. I'd love to try some Sephardic recipes I heard Evan Kleiman talk about on her radio program here in L.A. next year. They sound like more different flavors are involved. Eastern Euro Passover food is comforting but, IMO, a little on the bland side.

However we found a simple but rather good kosher wine with a very interesting history. It's the first kosher wine made in Portugal in 500 years, produced by the decendents of a family who had to hide and then flee and the decendents of the family who helped them. Here's the wine link and it contains a further link that gives more of the history:
http://www.abarbanel.com/wines/terrasdebelmonte.shtml

 

[khan]

ours was also eastern but very enjoyable and we made the most of it, though it was a tad spicy

 

[mezzaluna]

Speaking of charoset, Chrose, what's your favorite concoction? I do the very traditional European one: apples (I use Rome- not too sweet, good foil for the wine and sugar), cinnamon and sugar, chopped walnuts, sweet wine. When pressed, I will sub grape juice for the wine and leave out the nuts (SIL with dietary needs). I haven't tried the Sephardic recipes but would like to.

 

[cape chef]

My family also follows Eastern European Jewish foods during the holidays.

Saturday will be our Seder as we have not been able to get together yet.

Mezz, check out this link, you may enjoy it.

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/eg...sephardic.html
Peace
CC

 

[chrose]

Mezz, that's the one I use. Again, it's what I grew up with and it's waht I like (love! :lips: )
I spoke with my mother last night and she told me my father was making Tadelach. I haven't made it in years, but I thought maybe it was time to make it again. However my son is'nt a walnut fan. She suggested I make it without them I said NO! My son can just suffer what's Tadelach without walnuts

 

[daveb]

My wife's family has their own specialty: hard-boiled eggs mashed up and mixed with the leftover salt water and horseradish -- served when other people would have gefülte fish.

Anyone else do this?

 

[mezzaluna]

Dave, that sounds like typical shtetl food! My grandmother would have drizzled melted schmaltz on it. She LOVED schmaltz.

Chrose, I once heard Tadelach (or as my family called them, "taigelach") called "doughies". Sounds delicious, right? I actually made them for the first Passover when I was married. I like them, but since my husband doesn't, I gave up on them.

 

[daveb]

It does, doesn't it. Wierd part is, my wife's family were upper-class Viennese.

 

[phatch]

That's Yiddish for you. Taig is German for dough as I recall.

Phil

 

[mezzaluna]

Dave, maybe they were upper-class Viennese but their cook was from the shtetl.

 

[chrose]

Whoops! How right you are, now that I read it, I see. Thanks for the reminder.

As far as schmaltz, I only knew one grandparent and she lived in Florida (surprise ) so I didn't see much of her cooking past taiGelach! But I do remember on fridays my mother would roast a chicken and fry up the liver with onions and the schmaltz. My father would come home, grab the rye bread and sop it up. 2 heart attacks later........

 

[mezzaluna]

Yeah, Chrose, her watchword was, "If the grease doesn't drip from the beard, it's not good." No heart disease in that half of my family and most of them lived to be 90. Must be the genes!

I have to say that eating even a small portion of food prepared with schmaltz is so intensely evocative of my grandmother that I will risk it on rare occasions just for the experience. I had a jar of schmaltz in my fridge for the longest time- just sniffing the opened jar was a time trip. I'm sure everyone has similar experiences, whether it's a food item or something like pine boughs or someone's cologne.