By Salty Pepperberg, Special to JTNews
Matzoh Brei is not Matzoh Brei without the salt. The way it glistens with oil as it’s spooned from the pan, crystals reflecting in the kitchen’s morning light. When my tastebuds see matzoh, they think, “uh oh, cardboard again?”
Yet when I soak those crunchy crackers for a minute, then mix them with one egg per square until the matzoh is fully coated, then cooked until golden brown, and the aroma from the frying pan wafts onto those receptors, how could it not be a shock when they taste something sweet?
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with mixing matzoh and sweets. Every year I look forward to matzoh granola, chocolate-covered matzoh with caramel, even matzoh Almond Roca. Those are all delicious, and appropriate, but once the bread of affliction hits the frying pan, there should be no more thoughts of sweetness. As the renowned culinary master Julia Child might have once said, “I’d lose my kishkes had somebody stuck sugar in my Matzoh Brei. Well, I never.”
One ingredient gives my argument gravity: the egg. Were it not for that egg — another integral part of our seder meal — we might not be having this argument today. Who puts sugar on a hard-boiled egg? Honestly!
I can recall eating a Grand Slam meal at Denny’s — without the sausage, of course — and cringing when the pancake syrup inevitably touched my sunny-side ups. How can that be inflicted on a meal as holy as Matzoh Brei?
My colleague Dr. McSugarfried speaks of festival foods as being sweet. He certainly
has a point, but nobody ever fried a hamantaschen. I will, however, remind him of one sweet festival “treat”: deep-fried Twinkies at the state fair in Puyallup. Need I say more? A line must be drawn, and Matzoh Brei should not be the meal to cross it.
If we want to look at the question historically, we can also use the Exodus from Egypt as an example. The 40-year journey through the desert was devoid of sweetness. The Sinai is made up of little more than sand, and what is sand if not salty? People suffered, and even the manna can’t last forever. Once the Israelites crossed over into their new land, however, they settled not so far from a small sea with a salt content higher than any other body of water on Earth. In order to bring life to that sea, a feast celebrating the Hebrews’ return from bondage would have drawn on the resources of their new land. Hence, salty Matzoh Brei would have been a meal to commemorate the Jews in their new land of freedom.
Incidentally, I checked Amazon for The Journey of a Lifetime. It is nowhere in their database.