Why is this matzah different from all other matzahs?
I read the box. I looked at the picture. I gave it a polygraph test. But it turns out that those machines really can be beaten, because the box I bought was of wholemeal matzah. It told me it was regular and it lied. My box of matzah lied to me.So it's wholemeal. Super. Everybody's sooo health conscious. I'm very happy for everybody. Everybody can get their healthy wholemeal matzah. Mmm, it's so good, in a healthy-kind-of-cardboard-n-twigs-way. Great.
However. These boxes should be better marked. Like writing 'wholemeal' somewhere on the front. Or back. Or sides. Perhaps I'm just overzealous, though.*
I opened the box and pulled out a piece that was dark brown and hippy-crunchy-grainy looking. I read the box again and it didn't say anything other than 'matzah' on it. To be fair, it tasted fine. But I only bought one box, so I had nothing to change it up with. For example, regular, better-tasting versions. Call it my American upbringing, but I like a nice piece of regular, white matzah. Maybe a piece of egg matzah here and there. But no. Just the wholemeal.And the wholemeal doesn't get along with the rest of the food items in the cabinet, unlike the easy-going regular matzah. The wholemeal is always smoking a bowl, or holding rallies against the pasta, or pulling open the ziploc seal to try to free the animal crackers. It tolerates the small box of chocolate-covered matzah (it is a cousin, after all, even if it practices differently), but it has no patience for the Craisins and dried fruit, working at cross-purposes/outcomes from its own.
In response to this imposed health-consciousness, I made sure to eat plenty of other crap. For example, Christine and I went out the other night to Stalactites, a 24-hour Greek place downtown here, and had some saganaki and a nice big bowl of chips (fries) with an array of dips (tzatziki, hummus, babaganoush). Nothing like a slab of fried cheese to soothe the savage Passover-induced food crankiness.
Cheese turns out to be the cure for most ills, I find. The wholemeal matzah with a schmear of cream cheese works out jes' fine.
*For those curious souls playing along at home, wondering how I eventually found out it was, in fact, wholemeal matzah, here it is: after looking at the box many times, using it for a few days, I noticed, in small letters off in the corner of the top of the box, it said 'wholemeal'. I still think it should say it on the front.
posted by Halley @ 1:31 AM
4 Comments:
I don't know if this is an Australian thing or a Jewish thing, so tell me.... is wholemeal the same as whole-grain?
I was a little annoyed with the whole-grain craze myself, at first, till I started eating the whole-grain and whole-wheat versions of pretty much everything. I tell you what, it's actually pretty tasty.
But then, I'm no matzah expert. Last time I had it was about 10 years ago, babysitting, and I covered it with cream cheese. Yum. Which proves your cheese theory, by the way.
the funny thing about this post is that I like all the wheat-y, grain-y, seed-y, funky-stuff-in-the-bread, bread.
and wholemeal is different than whole wheat. They have whole wheat here, too. I saw a diagram one time that explains it - basically more/different parts of the grain are used. And some other stuff. Not so sure. But anyway, as far as I understand, it's different.
You did better than I did. The store up the street ran out of matzah. So I improvised by taking a spatula with holes and squished many pieces of regular bread to make it flat and bumpy like matzah for Melissa. I tried to convince her that it was indeed matzah... Maureen-matzah (new brand). She didn't believe me. I'm such a bad honorary Jewish girl (as she calls me).
-M
that was a good creative project, though. kinda misses the point of no bread, but a creative idea. :)it's like passover performance visual art. It could be making some sort of representative statement about...y'know...stuff.
Post a Comment
<< Home