From Tuesday evening it’s a bit of a weird half-way house regarding food. We had completely de-chametzed the flat on Tuesday evening, so didn’t have any leavened bread in the flat, and the first matzo (unleavened stuff) we’re allowed to eat *has* to be at Seder night, as Pesach came in on Wednesday evening. My Hebrew teacher and I talked about it in our last lesson, and she said that you can eat leavened until about 9.30 am on the day that Pesach comes in (as Jewish days run from sundown rather than midnight). So I’d figured that lunch would just be some yoghurt and fruit, which seemed weird; starting the restriction before the festival comes in. Maybe it marks the final stages of preparation and the prohibition on leavened foods is supposed to concentrate the mind on the imminent festival and rituals?
So all set to have a very healthy lunch, when my department went out for lunch to mark the last day of a colleague who had been there 6½ years, and was once my trainee. The original plan had been to go to Chez Bruce, the team would have left the office at 11.30am, and a PA and I would have stayed behind to man the fort, that idea was canned on Tuesday evening. The plan was canned on Tuesday evening because workloads were just excessive and because the boss really wanted us all to go and eat as a team. I wasn’t able to go to the Chez Bruce lunch because I would have had to leave part-way through to get home in time for Pesach. We ended up going to Novelli’s gastronomically excellent place in Harpenden. The boss pulled a three-line party whip on us, so we had to go. I was stoked at the idea. Until I remembered; no leavened.
Whilst the team was eating “pot of pain du jour” which was bread baked in a flower-pot and working out whether to have the rillettes or the carpaccio of beef, I was trying to find something, anything, on the menu that I could eat. First off the selection was any meat. It’s not kosher. Then any fish apart from cod and haddock. Then anything with flour in it. I was left with a choice between cod (served without the mussles that comprised part of the dish) and a goat cheese and potato terrine which contained no flour. In fairness, the only other dishes I would have been able to eat outside Pesach, if I liked everything kosher that I could like, were a mushroomy pancake which sounded incredible (but it contained flour) and two starters – one salmon and one tuna. Most of the fish on the menu were in fact sea food, apart from these starters. I have therefore decided that eating salmon is something I should do. So after Pesach, that’s on my list.
And the restaurant – highly recommend it.
Anyway, home later in the afternoon and out to Seder night. My Hebrew teacher hosted 17 for the first night. I read some of the service, some bits in English and a section in Hebrew (yay me!) – the “why matzo” section. Then we ate and ate. I chatted to my Hebrew teacher’s mother in law who has a great theory on how the ten plagues had (a) been evidenced as actually occurring and (b) been hypothesised as occurring other than through Godly intervention. This was hugely interesting and may well become the subject of the essay I have to write before going before the Beth Din.
Thursday night – another Seder night, with my future in-laws and some good friends of theirs. The whole experience again, with the eating and the Hebrew. It’s very amusing actually that both years so far Mr Wonderful’s mother says how much quicker it is this year than it has been in previous years. I think this is common with any memory of a repetitive event, the first memories of which are grounded in the mists of childhood. Having attended my first Seder at the age of 27, I can categorically say the service has never lasted more than 2 hours. Eating the meal can take longer, but it’s definitely never been an all-night affair. As a child though, a meal starting at 7.30 (I’m being optimistic here, no meal I’ve been to yet has started before 8!) and lasting 2 hours will take a child past its bedtime anyway, without the requirement to sit up straight and follow the Hebrew!
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