Passover à Paris

Passover - a holiday centered around food if there ever was one - is pretty easy to celebrate almost everywhere. Sure, it's a little more challenging to observe the various dietary requirements in Paris, where delectable baked goods are available on every corner. But as long as you have access to lots of veggies and beans and meat and matzoh, you're set.

Not that we should take any of that for granted, especially not matzoh. I stopped in three supermarkets before I finally found this critically-important cracker (Monoprix to the rescue!). At first this surprised me, since there's a large Orthodox Jewish population in our neighborhood. I ultimately realized that the Orthodox Jews probably shop in places where all the food is kosher by default, rather than just 4 shelves at the end of an aisle.

The matzoh here is nothing like the matzoh we're used to. (I never realized what a strangle-hold Manischewitz and Streit's had on Ashkenazic Jewish cuisine until those brands were no longer available.) This matzoh - from the Sephardic tradition - is thicker, less crunchy, and strangest of all, it's round!


Round matzoh, a complete lack of Haggadot (the prayer books used for the Passover service), tiny chairs on which pillows don't fit well - these are all minor inconveniences. The Seder goes on.

Thanks to all who shared our food and our traditions, and thanks for helping us create new ones: reading the Haggadah off computer screens and ending the service with "Next Year in Jerusalem - or Paris, whichever works out."