A Love Letter to Matzo

I might no longer say those are the most efficient of instances. I might no longer say those are the chillest of instances. I might no longer say, as we emerge from a depressing and scorching iciness right into a rainy and warmer spring, that those are probably the most predictable of instances. And but I will not let you know how excited I’m that we’re barreling towards Passover. Passover sucks (a week-plus of unleavened foods, a definite heaviness within the type of consistent reminders of our previous, an excessive amount of sugar-wine, and so on.), nevertheless it at all times brings matzo instances. And I definitely adore matzo instances.

To be transparent: Matzo sucks, too. No, I listen you—matzo is a mammothly vital meals, a colossally symbolic one. No, no actually—I perceive (I will be able to connect my Hebrew highschool certificates right here, the place is yours?!)! But additionally, matzo is a worse model of a giant and rancid salt-free Saltine. Even if it’s at its absolute hottest and easiest, it’s nonetheless the similar degree of dangerous as when it’s been sitting inside of a field in a humid basement for 11 and ¾ months. What different meals are you able to identify which might be, with out exception, at all times at their highest…and concurrently at their very worst? Matzo is so dangerous. I nonetheless love matzo.

Over the last few months, we’ve been subjected to the advent of Lady Dinner, #WaterTok, Fruit Roll-Up ice cream, the cottage cheese-ification of the whole lot…you’re acquainted, I’m positive. Are you aware what wasn’t featured in any individual’s Lady Dinners? Damaged shards of cast flour-water. Are you aware what no person was once consuming that made them so thirsty, prompting them to bum-rush a space Goal and monopolize the entire Stanleys? Holy holey cardboard. Matzo won’t ever pass viral. No one needs it to! None people aspire to are living in a global the place matzo is aspirational. And that’s simply one of the most great thing about matzo.

Over the process the following week, on the web and IRL, we will be able to see lush vats of charoset, hacks for horseradish housing, and takes on tips on how to easiest organize a Seder plate amidst a bigger Seder unfold, however no person will discuss matzo. We can all sit down there and grimace as we pile charoset after which horseradish onto the car this is matzo—a mandated participant on the identical desk—and touch upon the whole lot we simply ate…except for for the matzo. To be transparent, matzo will make steady appearances in all this super-cute Seder content material internationally all the way through the vacation…however it’s going to most probably be enveloped in beautiful, sentimental matzo covers, by no means to be observed via the bare eye. What different meals are you able to identify which might be, with out exception, so synonymous with a vacation however no person needs to discuss consuming them? 

Annually for so long as I will bear in mind, proper across the time the solar begins emerging nearer to six a.m. than to 7, two packing containers of matzo seem on my folks’ countertop proper via the espresso gadget. They’re no longer prepping for Passover relatively but; no longer explicitly. However they’re slowly rotating buttered or cream-cheesed items of it into their breakfast routines. Other pots of toppings—candy preserves, salty spreads, instantly salt for that already salty butter—finally end up unfold round their plates. They mix ‘n match their matzo toppings from piece to piece. They provide me a work each and every time, each and every unmarried 12 months, throughout days in February and the start of March, at all times insisting the strawberry jam makes it such a lot higher. It doesn’t, they usually are aware of it, nevertheless it’s great that all of us fake. 

A couple of weeks later, contemporary packing containers stack up on their counter, subsequent to the refrigerator, at the desk. There’s a large number of fucking matzo earlier than there’s none at enthusiastic about months and months. I really like the brown-and-yellow stacks of packing containers. I really like the pre-matzo instances that each and every unmarried 12 months dovetail us proper into the matzo instances. They’re totally predictable, unremarkable instances, and I really like the bowel-clogging cracker that ushers it all in.

Passover sucks. Matzo sucks. I really like Passover. I really like the matzo instances.