Bread of a Feast

Columbia, MD — Ever since the Jews fled ancient Egypt with their unleavened bread, matzo has traveled with them to all corners of the Jewish Diaspora. And just as Jewish life has found fresh expression on new soil and with new generations, so has matzo.

As Jews prepare for Passover, the seven-day festival that celebrates the Exodus and begins at sundown Monday, their options for matzo, a staple of the ritual meal made of milled grain and water, are nearly as bountiful as the meal itself.

Thick and thin, round and square, plain and gourmet, rolled by hand and machine, matzo has been adapted to meet the needs of Jewish settlements from the Venetian Ghetto to the deep South to Zabar’s on New York City’s Upper West Side.

Despite matzo’s burgeoning variety, there is a growing demand for genuine Passover bread, baked in haste as it was so long ago. “I’ve been selling flatbreads all my life and [handmade] shmurah is the real thing,” says Baltimorean Eli W. Schlossberg, a veteran of the gourmet- and kosher-food industries. It most resembles “the matzo that the Jews ate when they left.”

Shmurah, or “guarded” matzo, prepared by and for Orthodox Jews under rabbinic scrutiny, offers the same artisanal appeal as the baguettes and focaccias produced in upscale bakeries.

Strictly guarded to prevent leavening from the moment of harvest until it is packaged, shmurah has found popularity beyond the Orthodox community. “I think people are trying to get more authentic,” says Joan Nathan, an authority on Jewish cuisine and author of numerous cookbooks. “Even Manischewitz has a line of shmurah matzo,” she says. “It tastes better.”

“More and more people are starting to use shmurah, which is now packaged even for grocery stores,” Schlossberg says. “Years ago, only Orthodox people were accessing it.”

Shmurah matzo is a “tremendously growing category,” says Menachem Lubinsky, president of Lubicom, a New York company that tracks kosher food sales. Last year, the shmurah matzo bakeries he queried reported sales increases from about 15 percent to 17.5 percent. “Even these little bakeries are producing huge amounts of matzo,” he says. “I have every expectation that this year will be the same.”

Eating matzo, “the food of faith,” is the central commandment of the Passover Seder. After blessings, the bread is consumed alone and as part of a sandwich filled with bitter herbs and a fruit-and-nut mixture called charoset that symbolizes the experience of slavery in Egypt. Later in the Seder, children often delight in retrieving the afikomen, matzo hidden before the meal has begun.

Leftover matzo also finds its way into a multitude of dishes, from soup to chocolate confections. During the week of Passover, Gail Lipsitz often prepares a lasagna made with matzo. “It is a good lunch or dinner dish with a salad,” says Lipsitz, coordinator of marketing and community relations for Jewish Family Services in Baltimore. “I added the spinach myself for a healthier version of the original recipe.”

Those who don’t adhere to the strict laws that dictate what is “kosher for Passover” can choose from matzo made with eggs, onion, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and a wealth of other flavorings. To appeal to consumers with health concerns or a preference for natural products, matzo manufacturers are substituting oats, spelt and whole wheat for white flour, and organic grain for the conventional variety.

Inexpensive Israeli matzo brands also have extended the profusion of matzo possibilities.

“Whereas 10 years ago, you might have seen one or two [matzo] brands on the shelf, today you might see as many as eight or 10,” Lubinsky says.

Even within the realm of Orthodox Judaism, there are choices. Shmurah matzo may be made by hand or by machine. It also may be prepared with gluten-free grains, such as oats or spelt.

Handmade shmurah matzo is round and has a pleasingly charred, uneven, almost fibrous texture. Because of the high cost of grain grown under supervision and other labor-intensive factors, shmurah matzo fetches gourmet prices – as high as $15 to $20 a pound, compared with mass-produced matzo, which can cost less than $2 a pound.

Not everyone can afford shmurah matzo. Through a program called “maot chitin” – money for wheat – Jewish communities around the world provide matzo and other Passover food for poor Jews.

“We give away hand shmurah to hundreds of families,” says Schlossberg, who is also executive trustee for the Ahavas Yisrael charity fund, a kosher food bank in Baltimore.

While about half the price of handmade shmurah, the machine-made variety also requires constant supervision. “We do a limited run of shmurah,” says Alan Adler, director of operations for Streit’s, a 92-year-old family business in New York.

After every 18-minute baking cycle, the prescribed time limit for producing shmurah matzo, Streit’s employees spend nearly two hours scouring the ovens and their work space to ensure that no leavening is left behind. “It’s sort of our history,” Adler says. “Even though we don’t make any money on it, we’ll keep doing it.”

Since the Industrial Revolution, Orthodox Jews have debated the merits of machine-made shmurah matzo and its handmade counterpart.

There always has been “a lot of controversy among rabbinical authorities,” says Avrom Pollak, president of Star-K Kosher Certification agency in Baltimore. “Some felt machines can control the making of the matzo to prevent it from becoming chametz [leavened bread]. Others took the exact opposite approach and felt it needs to be made by hand.”

In his home, Pollak says, “We have both.” Machine-made matzo “makes a good matzo brei,” a fried concoction of broken matzo and eggs. Handmade matzo, he said, “gives you that better mouth feel.”

For about seven months every year, kosher bakeries clustered in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Lakewood, N.J., bustle with activity as highly skilled employees prepare handmade shmurah matzo within the requisite 18-minute cycle.

No irregularity escapes scrutiny, not even a tiny blister on the matzo’s surface: “If the blister formed is so small that it cannot accommodate an average-sized hazelnut (with its shell) between the upper and lower layers, then such a matzo is kosher,” according to online guidelines by Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, Star-K’s rabbinic administrator.

Every year, Rabbi Yosef Tendler, dean of Ner Israel Mechina High School in Pikesville, takes students to the Pupa-Tzelem bakery in Brooklyn, where they prepare matzo to carry home to Baltimore. On the field trip, yeshiva students observe how to carry out the laws for preparing Passover matzo. “What they study becomes reality,” the rabbi says. “It’s not something in the book.”

Decades ago, Tendler and his students received orders for about 200 pounds of matzo, he says. As word spread, orders multiplied. This year, he and his yeshiva students returned from Brooklyn with 2,600 pounds of shmurah matzo.

In the weeks before Passover, Rabbi Hillel Baron fires up his model matzo bakery at the Lubavitch Center for Jewish Education in Columbia. On a March afternoon, Baron, wearing a chef’s toque over his yarmulke, demonstrates for 70 spirited boys from an Orthodox kindergarten the art of preparing handmade shmurah matzo. It’s a lively show that allows the boys to roll their own matzos and watch as Baron adroitly slips them in and out of a 700-degree oven.

“These kids remember this forever,” Baron says. With the making of matzo, the story of Exodus “comes alive.”
Some matzo choices

• Chocolate-covered

• Hand-rolled

• Flavored (including sun-dried tomato, egg, onion, garlic and olive oil)

• Machine-rolled

• Various grains (including whole wheat; gluten-free oats or spelt; or organic flours)
Matzo Brei

Makes 4 servings

4 matzo squares

3 cups water

4 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1/4 teaspoon pepper, plus more to taste

4 tablespoons butter

Break the matzo into roughly 3-inch pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. Add water. Let soak about 20 minutes or until matzo is completely soft. Drain in a sieve. Then, using your hands, press all the water out of the matzo pieces.

Scramble eggs in another mixing bowl. Add drained matzo. Mix well. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Heat butter in a large skillet until bubbling but not brown. Add matzo-and-egg mixture. Fry over medium heat until golden brown, about 5 minutes on one side, then flip over and fry until golden brown, approximately another 5 minutes. Check seasonings and add salt and pepper to taste.

Per serving: 284 calories, 9 grams protein, 17 grams fat, 9 grams saturated fat, 24 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram fiber, 242 milligrams cholesterol, 442 milligrams sodium

From “The New York Times Jewish Cookbook”
Matzo Lasagna

Serves 8 to 10

8 ounces low-fat ricotta cheese

8 ounces low-fat, small-curd cottage cheese

4 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 egg

1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley

one 10-ounce box chopped frozen spinach, defrosted and well-drained

salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

one 24-ounce jar marinara sauce

one 10-ounce box matzo (about 6 to 8 squares)

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Combine ricotta, cottage and mozzarella cheeses, then mix with egg, parsley, spinach and spices in a big bowl. Pour a thick layer of marinara sauce on the bottom of an aluminum baking pan. Wet matzo and lay pieces in pan as you would lasagna noodles. Layer the cheese mixture on top of the matzo, then pour some sauce over the cheese mixture.

Continue layering matzo, cheese mixture and sauce, and top with parmesan cheese. Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, uncovering the pan for the last 15 minutes.

Per serving (based on 10 servings): 249 calories, 14 grams protein, 6 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, 35 grams carbohydrate, 2 grams fiber, 36 milligrams cholesterol, 547 milligrams sodium