Kosher For Passover Chocolates, Cranberries, Matzoh, parve and seder recipes

Chocolates

 I was invited to the second Seder night. I took kosher for Passover chocolates. I had asked the hostess whether she wanted food, drink, flowers, a pot plant, a scarf or accessory. She said, kosher for Passover chocolates. (See my previous post on this.) Kosher for Passover wine, like kosher for Passover chocolates, requires tracking down a physical or online shop before the close for Passover.

When I arrived at the Seder meal, the hostess asked me, 'Are the chocolates parve?' 

I misheard. I thought she said, Passover or pesach. I said, 'Yes, you can see the label.'

Parve

Parve, or Parveh, Yiddish for neutral, means no milk (nor meat) products, so can be eaten with either milk meals, or meals containing meat. 

(Kosher food laws cover not only the ban on eating pig meat, but also the treatment of meat to remove blood. You are supposed to kill animals as quickly as possible with a sharp knife to lessen their pain. Then there's the cost of inspecting meat to be sure the animal is not diseased. Plus not eating shellfish. Finally, not eating milk and meat products at the same meal, to prevent killing the animal in front of the parent, which I have seen on video done in streets in modern times for festivals, and meat stewed in milk is served all year as it is the national dish of Jordan. You 'build a fence around the law'.)

We were having a meat meal. The hostess checked the labelling. I had noticed the word parve on some of the chocolate packages, but not thought about it. Since parve chocolates contain no milk and no meat, that might make them acceptable to vegans. Jews and vegans also avoid animal sourced gelatin, used to refine wine, which is one feature of kosher wine.

Kosher.com will send you a recipe book to download if you want it.

Verdict On Kosher Chocolates

Chocolate Truffles. Shufra label. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The wrapped chocolates are good if you like to be sure nobody has touched the food you are eating. They look smartest for a gift.

Chocolate Covered Cranberries

But my favourites were the chocolate covered cranberries. Tasty. Seemed healthier. More unusual. No wrapping paper making litter. You can diet on just one, or keep going back for more as there are lots of them.

Chocolate Coated Cranberries. Label Medley Foods. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Useful Websites On Parve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareve

https://www.kosher.com/article/what-do-the-different-kosher-certification-symbols-mean-960/

Passover, Pesach, Seder Night, When and what in 2023 and other years

Happy Passover. Picture showing wine and matzoh.

In 2023 Passover starts just before Easter and overlaps it. Passover starts on the evening of April 5th and ends on April 13th.

One year I went to Israel when Easter and Passover coincided. It was hard to get flights. The overlap of the holidays is pretty common.

Many scholars believe that the last supper was a Seder meal. Seder means order. You eat foods in order, recalling the escape from the plagues and slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt.

Features of the Jewish festival include the basic foods, wine, bread - special flat bread (matzo sometimes called crackers). Something bitter to recall the times of hardship. Something sweet. To entertain the children and the family, sometimes a piece of matzah is hidden and had to be found, and children of different ages, especially the youngest are given a line to say. The evening ends with songs.

If you have a family, the elders preside. If you don't, you can hope for an invitation from a friend's family, or even a stranger's family. Increasingly nowadays, with smaller families, people marrying later, increased numbers of widows, for those without families, travellers, holidays, group events are held,group celebrations.

You can buy greeting cards online to send overseas.

Useful Websites

 https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/671901/jewish/When-Is-Passover-in-2023-2024-2025-2026-and-2027.htm

https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/2019/03/07/easter-and-passover-why-they-often-overlap-and-other-fun-facts/3091807002/

https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1751/jewish/What-Is-a-Seder-Passover-Meal.htm

What To Take For Passover and When Families Are Giving Up Wheat

Whether you are travelling overseas or just around the big city or out to the countryside, your hosts are likely to offer you food and drink and you may wish to take food or drink.

Kosher Guests
For many years I had been in a puzzle over this. I went to visit a kosher family, who were not bothered normally, but one of their children married somebody who would not visit and eat in their house unless they kept kosher. So the hosts, and visitors, had to know the rules and observe them.

Seder Time
I arrived for a Seder meal during the period of Passover. I had brought flowers and an edible herb plant instead of food. To my surprise even the flowers and herbs had to stay out in their garage until the end of Passover. The word Seder means order.

The first night of Passover is celebrated with a large meal, an annual gathering.  Imagine it's the Jewish equivalent of Christmas or Chinese New Year. Naturally it is a big event in Israel.

Contamination Rules' History
According to the Discovery Channel programme I watched, the food rules we still see observed by Jews for Passover date back to the time the Hebrews were in Egypt under Pharaoh.

Passover and Seder
The word Passover is the celebration of the passing over of the Angel of Death during the first of the ten plagues. The Discovery programme consulted various experts in causes of death. The cause of death could not have been slaughter by a violent assailant in every house, or this would have been resisted and recorded and unlikely that the oldest son would have been selected in every house.

The cause of death was from inside. Most likely a poison. Not an unfriendly act, but accidental contamination of food. Affecting every house, it would have been in a central supply (like a modern wholesaler or catering company.

The reason the oldest child succumbed was that the oldest was given a larger portion of food, not just because they were older but because the oldest child was favoured. (As I wrote that, it occurred to me that the smallest child could also have been breastfeeding.)

Lent And Diet Restriction
The tradition of banning foods for Passover evolved into giving up foods for Lent.

That led to the UK tradition of pancake day, when you use up flour to make pancakes.

To sum it up, food given up for lent - hence Pancake Day using up flour, date back to some disaster in the time of the ten plagues in Egypt. Then flour or crops ready to grind into flour or food from a previous year's harvest went mouldy during a wet spring.

To prevent it happening again, everything in the house from the previous harvest was removed before crops from the fresh spring harvest were imported. Either the origin is forgotten, but the panic to obey is transmitted through the generation. Or to ensure that citizens obey the important rules, you create a superstition or rule which does not give the reason, but instead make it a commandment by God. the rule has to be obeyed 'religiously', strictly.

St Vitus's Dance
According to the Discovery programme, if I remember rightly, this contamination of the harvest happened again, in the USA in more recent times. Contamination resulted in symptoms, in what was called St Vitus's Dance.

Nowadays with so many people being gluten-free, it is thoughtful to ask your hostess or host what food the family eats, and to mark food when serving to visitors and overseas guests.

Useful Websites
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
visittheusa.co.uk
visitsingapore.com
visitlondon.com
https://www.amazon.co.uk (slogan 100% kosher teeshirt)
http://www.contemporaryjudaica.co.uk
www.lonelyplanet.com/Australia
https://new.goisrael.com/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have many more posts on Kosher food, Israel, food worldwide. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Easter Parades, Passover and Seder: how does this affect me as a traveller, shopper, souvenir hunter and gourmet?

Problem
First - when is Easter?
Second - when is Passover?

Answers
YOUR DIARY

Most diaries list this year's Christian and Jewish and other holidays as well as next year's. No need to thumb through the pages of your diary looking for the dates of Easter and other holidays in tiny print. You probably have a list of Religious Festivals at the front of your diary. (If you don't have dates in this year's diary, last year's diary has this year's dates.)

Five-year diaries don't have dates of festivals. Cut out the religious date pages from last year's diary and tape them into your five-year diary.

EASTER 2018
Christian Western
2018 Good Friday, March 30, 2018, then Easter Day Sunday April 1st, 2018, followed by Bank holiday on Easter Monday, April 2 2018, making a long weekend.

Eastern Orthodox - Easter Day April 8th, 2018

Jewish Passover, 1st day, Saturday March 31
(Some people will have a second seder night outside Israel to be sure they are always celebrating on the same day as they would if they were in Israel. The second seder is often at the home of the mother or daughter or sister or sister-in-law of the first day's hostess, to share the work, and using up any leftover food from the first day on the second day.) If you are visiting or entertaining Jewish people during the festival.

The Discovery Channel did a programme on the origin of the story in the bible and set various detectives on discovering possible origins of the story of the ten plagues which caused the Pharaoh to think God was punishing him and that he had to let Moses and the Children of Israel depart across the Dead Sea or Red Sea (various mis-spellings - too long to explain) to the Promised land.

One set of modern detective findings was that the smiting of the firstborn could have been the same as the origin of the St Vitus' Dance in the USA and Europe, symptoms caused by poisoning by mouldy infected grains stored in a very wet storage house. Hence the custom of throwing out last year's crop before harvesting the spring crop of grain - leading to matzoh made from unleavened bread or cracker, and pancakes using up the last of the stored grain made into flour, on pancake day.

Another story you are likely to hear is that the group left Egypt in such a hurry that they had no time to allow the bread to rise.

It's possible, and it the most likely theory which I have heard.

Why should you care about all of this?
HISTORY -
very interesting for history buffs.
CRIME SCENES -
very interesting for archaeologists and detectives.
RELIGIONS -
seeing how religions relate and develope.
ART -
the last supper, showing Jesus and the disciples around the table with wine and bread would have been a Passover meal.
TRAVEL -
with two festivals coinciding, flights are likely to be booked up in countries celebrating either Easter or Passover or both, and airlines travelling to, from or through those countries on those dates.
HOTELS -
hotels are also likely to be booked up by holidaymakers, both the religious ones holding celebrations or going to particular countries, and secular families and families of other religions simply booking travel during school and work holidays.
CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES
Religious - Passion plays: Oberammergau in Bavaria in Germany, in 2020, booking now.
Secular - Easter Parades.
Israel and worldwide - a chance to be invited to a family Seder night.
Jewish Orthodox hotels will have big events.
Families of mixed marriages might like to go to communal seder night held at liberal synagogues.

SHOPPING
Easter goods:
UK and European shops and supermarkets will be stocking chocolate eggs, flowers, Easter greeting cards.
Some cities will have Easter parades.
Fifth Avenue, New York. Bring your camera and your bonnet or hat.

Passover goods:
Supermarkets and shops will be stocking:
Kosher for passover wines, matzos and foods.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2019
Christian Western
Good Friday April 19, 2019
Easter Day April 21, 2019

Christian - Eastern Orthodox April 28, 2019

Jewish Passover 1st day April 20, 2019

Useful Websites
To send a greeting card:
123
http://www.123greetings.com/events/passover/thank_you/
Jacquie Lawson cards
https://www.jacquielawson.com/card/feast-of-freedom/h-0/3352802

Gifts For Your Family Or Your Host's Family
Amazon has loads of stuff including books which you can look inside:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Passover-Coffee-Quotes-Jennise-Conley/dp/0615787053/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522077264&sr=8-2&keywords=passover+gifts&dpID=51fLcUJbMFL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
http://store.chabad.org/catalog.asp?dept=2001
Chabad have a questions page, Seder gifts, and all sorts of suprising and amusing things including a  7 branch candelstick holder with each candle held by a different cat.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
I have many other posts on religious and secular holidays around teh world, Israel, Chinese New years, educational, enlightening and amusing. Please share links to your favourite pages. You can also contact me with your questions and comments through Facebook.

Easter and The Beast From The East - How To Dress And Eat On A Trip

Car mirror in snow. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Problem
 I have friends and family travelling from Singapore and Asia to London, and most years we used to try to get together in the school holidays, sometimes sending a son travelling in the opposite direction. With one free flight each, and one we paid for each, we could get everybody in one country for Christmas by spending one or two of our flights. When we had grandparents in England, we would spend Christmas in England, flying back from the USA or Asia. If you are Jewish, you might fly to join the older generation for Seder night, or to Israel.

If you go ahead despite the weather, will you find that the events you hoped to attend are cancelled? That might depend on whether the events involve public transport, ungritted side roads, family living on hills, slopes, remote places, northern areas more subject to snow.

Plane flight to a new season. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Changing flights involves three questions.

Can I get through easily to cancel the flight? (Plus hotels, taxis, tours, restaurants?)

Will I get a place on another flight at the last moment?

Will I get my money back?

If you rush in to change your flight, predictions may change yet again. Another cancelled flight will cost more in admin time and money.

If you book a non-refundable flight in advance you cannot change direction or date if the weather is bad. If you stick You risk getting delayed.

With many airlines, you can change your flight for a fee. If you are a top grade frequent flyer you will get priority for available seats at busy times.

Easter
This year Easter is predicted to be snowing in London, England and maybe Europe and North America, too.

Snow on the March flowers in London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Travel Dress
The rule is, dress for your destination. However, you don't want to be wearing a skimpy dress when leaving in the snow. The solution is to wear layers, However, you might want light or easily removed clothes for quickly undressing at security.

I go for wraparound skirts and dresses and coats. Or caftans. You might prefer separates so that you can remove your top and jacket, or keep them in hand luggage and wear them later.

Labelling clothes
I also label all my hats and jackets with my name or put an address card in the pocket. If you have time, you can sew on labels with your name. If you have time to order labels but no time for sewing them on, they can be temporarily fixed with a safety pin. Sew them on when you are waiting in a hotel room.

You can make large name cards in advance to stick onto anything you buy. Or look for a large bag, so that your coat and newly bought souvenirs are all together and nothing gets left behind.

Don't Look, Make Lists
In theory, in the old days when you had fewer possessions, it was simple to find your alternative season clothes and shoes. You had one suitcase for winter clothes and put that in your attic or basement or top cupboard. Change of season, holiday overseas, bring down the suitcase.

Nowadays we have skis and ski boots and poles, long coats, long boots, warm hats and gloves. In addition, in winter and snow, we need de-icer for the car. We have loads of stuff, kept all over the place.

I have one system - the vital stuff is far right or far left. Imagine that your shelf runs from January on the left to December on the right. So the de-icer for the car is on the far left in four-season England or the USA, whilst the fly-killer for summer is on the far right.

The same goes for underwear. The thongs and hot weather clothes and bikinis go on the left. The fur or imitation fur hats and gloves go on the right.

(If your cupboard has one side more accessible, keep the current season clothes nearest, the other season clothes at the far end.)

Label Stored Clothes
Also label every suitcase on all six sides and the handle with the contents. Just type the contents once,  copy it six times, use sticky tape to attach the printed word to stickers and a label for the handle.

Instead of worrying about how your life is control, keep busy and in control. You reap the benefits and save time later.

I hate having to hunt for thermal underwear and warm hats.

I keep a list of where I have kept my winter gloves and hats and ski boots.

The other items which have caused us to hunt in the past have been smart suits. All of a sudden we are invited to a wedding. Where is the suit? In theory it should be far right of the cupboard in the bedroom. But it isn't. Is it in another country? Has my husband's suit been borrowed by my son?

First, what is the dress code? Flying off to another country for a wedding means a new set or rules. In the UK it used to be the case that brides wore white (copying Queen Victoria), so everybody else wore other colours, not black which was for funerals.

We discovered that in Israel you can wear shorts with a silk shirt to a wedding, and I saw children and adults in skimpy summer clothes in a synagogue.

Neck Warmers
Neck warmers are light and small to carry. Great for winter and travelling.

Scarves
The solution is to ask. Despite all, I carry on three large thin scarves, one black, white and one brightly coloured, for a quick cover up for all occasions.

Cover-up For Revealing Summer Clothes
Some temples say you must wear proper clothes, not just cover-up scarves which might slip and reveal cleavage and arms. However, if you fix scarves with safety pins and waist belts you have an instant outfit. A high-neck lace blouse dickey is another handy item.

Food containers
I take my own small insulated water bottle. You can drink or empty out the water just before going through security. Refill at the other end.

Now all I have to do is email my family and friends and ask them to check in which country they have their warm clothing.

Research Clothes Buying
If you don't have a large luggage allowance, and might need to buy clothes for a change of weather, check shops in advance. Allow time for postage to your home for the last minute packing. Time is money. You can get overnight delivery if you are willing to pay.

Another piece of research you can do before leaving home on a trip is check which conveniently located stores at your destination stock cheap ski gloves or cheap swimsuits.

Night Clothes and Light Clothes
I have also found that night clothes need to adapt to temperature. I like to have one lightweight nightwear and one cover-up. You might think that skimpy outfits are sexier or less to pack. However, in hotels, I have found a revealing sexy outfit is not ideal when answering the door to the waiter with the early breakfast or late night dinner tray.

Hotel Cover-ups
I also thought I was not expecting anybody to call at my hotel room. On checkout day we were woken by ringing at the door, the unexpected hand delivery of the bill on the day you leave. That was followed by the person checking the bar. Finally, room service wondering when we were leaving so they could make up the room and change bedding and towels for the new arrivals. "What time are you checking out?"

I have also made the mistake of thinking that a sleeveless nightdress would be right for the tropics. With air conditioning on full blast, you can get quite chilly. With mosquito nets over the bed in Bali, worse still the sound of a mosquito zooming past after you open the bedroom door, you will be glad of nightwear which covers you from head to toe, and down to your wrists.

Author
Angela Lansbury

Chinese Etiquette For Chopsticks, Rice and New Year and Lo Hei

Problem
How do you spread maximum goodwill during lo hei and Chinese New Year?
How do you avoid offending people?

Answers
1 LO HEI
Organise or attend a reunion of family or friends or a club at which Lo Hei is served at the start, middle break or end of the meeting. Lo Hei is Chinese New Year dish of colourful mixed vegetables, often mixed up in front of the diners, adding each colour and symbolic food in order. You can buy Lo Hei sets in supermarkets. You can look on line to find the best prices.

Gold and Prosperity
The little oblong puffs symbolise gold or prosperity.

Fish
The fish might be prawns, king prawns, smoked salmon strips, dried salmon skin.

Story
At a Toastmasters meeting I attended at Toa Payoh Community Centre, the organiser had the list of ingredients and what they symbolise on her mobile phone (in Chinese characters). So she was able to read off instructions to others who were opening the food packets and tubs provided.

Jewish, Seder and Order
If you have ever been to a Jewish seder night or watched one on the internet or read about it, you will notice that the Seder service also takes different symbolic foods in order, symbolising sweet and sour events in history, drawing your attention to the different tastes (and colours). The word seder means order.

Fish Or Vegetarian?
Ideally last you add fish on top, in small strips, and mix it in so all diners get some. Before adding fish check if your diners include, vegetarians and those allergic to fish or shellfish. If so, you can either add the fish separately, or give them a portion before adding fish.

Left Or Right Hand
In Asia you use your right hand for eating and handling food, your left for dirty jobs, washing the floor or handling genitals when going to the toilet. Do not hand food to people with your left hand.

Chopstick Tips
When separating pairs of chopsticks and handing them around for a lo hei, make sure you open the packet at the end with the thickest part of the chopsticks, or allow each person to open their own, or to separate the sticks, or hand them from the thick end, so you are not handling the pointed end which goes in their mouths. (In fact, you are not supposed to put the pointed end in your mouth, because it goes back into the communal bowl to pick up the next piece, but I still don't like to see somebody's fingers on the ends of ht chopsticks which some Westerners will put in their mouth, and which everybody will put in the communal fish.

Chopsticks and Rice
Easy To Eat
If you don't like rice, or can't handle picking up grains of rice with chopsticks, then Lo Hei is a great dish. All the food is shredded and mixed together so you don't have to cut or mix or pick out anything.

Chopstick - flat or upright?
If you are given rice earlier or later, do not end by putting your chopsticks upright in leftover rice like incense sticks. This is only done for offering food to your dead ancestors. So to leave chopsticks upright in rice is offensive, upsetting and confusing for others. Don't do it even if you are not with Chinese friends, or if you are at home, because it sets a bad example to other Westerners and children who are then likely to do it in public restaurants where they will get wary looks from waiters, and be admonished by Chinese friends.

Chopsticks Resting Flat
When you have finished eating, lay your chopsticks flat. In restaurants you are given a chopstick rest on which to place your used chopsticks.

Tossing High
When tossing the Lo Hei before you all start to eat, the story goes that the higher you toss, the greater the prosperity. The Chinese seems to regard this as great fun.

Tossing Carefully To Protect Carpets /Floors
However, in some places the owners of the building might not appreciate having food on the floor. (A nuisance for staff to clean up. If your room is a dance hall, or yoga hall, the barefoot dancers won't want your food or grease on the floor. Food on the floor also attracts insects.

Several possible solutions:
Provide an edge to the bowl - such as paper table cover.
Place a larger flat platter underneath the central bowl.
Ask everybody to toast carefully and explain why.
Tell everybody you will need everybody to help clean the floor afterwards - and hope this discourages them from making a mess they have to clean.
Bring kitchen towel to clean up the floor.

Giving And Receiving Advice
Don't worry about doing things wrong and being informed or corrected. Speak and think positively. For example, "Thank you so much for telling me!" "I'm so glad you told me / helped me / warned me (mother-in-law / teacher / guide / my friend). You have saved me so much possible confusion / embarrassment!" "I do love learning about foreign / other /Chinese culture."

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts here on this blog and other blogs on blogger.com You will also be able to read more about me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and elsewhere on the internet. Take a look at my books on etiquette, travel, languages and other subjects on Amaxone and Lulu.com
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Thanksgiving in the USA; Christmas in Europe: Passover

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving in the USA, not observed in the UK, except at events run by Americans, is giving thanks for landing safely in the USA after the perilous sea crossing from the UK and Europe. (Remembering the Titanic, you can see why. You would also feel the same on a ferry from the west coast of England to Ireland or in the old days on a ship across the choppy Bay of Biscay.)

Thanksgiving is the major holiday when offices shut so that families can get together for a festive meal.

The meal may start with a prayer, followed by festive food, turkey.

Christmas
In the UK, the equivalent festival is Christmas. Christmas day is a national holiday. Most attractions and shops close. Increasingly restaurants serve Christmas Day lunch at very high prices, usually served by staff who do not have children and are glad of the money. Families at home get together with special foods is Christmas day lunch. Hospitals and emergency services are provided by others of other religions or none, by singles, or on a rota system so that everybody gets free time every other year.

UK Christmas dinner is turkey, followed by Xmas pudding (US plum pudding). You will find this offered for lunch and dinner as an option in most restaurants in London, England and throughout the UK in December.

Scotland
In Scotland New Year's eve is celebrated rather than Christmas.

Christmas is celebrated on different days in Scandinavian and Latin countries in Europe, eg Jan 6th.

Seder or Passover
The Jewish equivalent is the Seder night or passover, a thanksgiving for surviving the great plagues inflicted on Pharaoh and the long, dangerous journey through the sea and parting of the waves. You see this thanksgiving meal depicted in medieval paintings in national galleries of Europe, showing Jesus and the Last Supper. In paintings you see wine in silver goblets (before wine glasses became both affordable and classy and became the way to drink celebratory drinks).This festival takes place around the time of Easter.

BBC report on Black, Mexican and other thanksgiving.
Seemed a bit thin to me, but I liked the picture of trying not to tread on others' shoes around the doorway. I have never understood why the Chinese, Singaporeans and Asians who are so disciplined and fussy about rules and religion do not put their shoes neatly in pairs, parallel to the wall or door, or facing outwards for exit.

Useful Websites
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-34922821

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/what-is-thanksgiving-when-and-why-americans-celebrate-turkey-day-a3118576.html

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.