I'm sick. I started feeling sick during our last day in London. It increased a little bit each day and I fought through it, until Tuesday when I was too sick to go to my first fencing class of the quarter. And my first philosophy/probability class, which'll probably cost me. So I stayed in bed, watched TV on the laptop, drank water and tea, and noshed. (<---the Yiddish word for "snacked.") A lot. But I snacked healthier than usual. Hmm...why?
For Eastern-European or "Ashkenazi" Jews like myself, forbidden foods include a category called "chometz." Chometz is defined as any of the five grains - wheat, spelt, barley, oats, and rye - that came into contact with water for more than 18 minutes. Basically, no bread, cookies, chips, cake...if people with gluten allergies can't eat it, most likely neither can I this week. Also, no beer or alcohol that's brewed from wheat or grain. My mom was happy to discover that her favorite vodka is brewed from potatoes. Or something.
My sidebar about chometz.
It's EVERYWHERE. I went to a feminist meeting tonight at the new Ohio Union (which is super fancy and feels really unnecessary), and there was a giant platter of cookies on the table. "Help yourself, there's a ton," I was told. I was about to get up to get a cookie when my pesach alarm went off: no no no! it's not kosher! I sat back down. A friend on my floor turned 20 today, and his mom sent him an enormous sheet cake - chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Nope, can't eat that either. Such a shame.
The other forbidden food group.
The other forbidden food group for Ashkenazi Jews is called "kitniyot," also known as "legumes." Kitniyot includes rice, corn, soy beans, string beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, mustard, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds. We don't eat it because a rabbi in the 13th century realized that it's often hard to distinguish between rice flour (kitniyot) and wheat flour (chometz). Also, a rabbi in the 16th century states that grains may become mixed with kitniyot and a person might inadvertently eat chometz.
The good news: QUINOA IS KOSHER FOR PASSOVER! Quinoa is a lovely little grain that can be eaten cold or hot, though it must be cooked first. It's very high in protein and great for vegetarians and vegans - it's as nutritious as soy without the side effect of increased estrogen.
all info comes from http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_passoverkosher.htm
My sidebar about kitniyot, and why my being sick ties into this:
Kitniyot is a frustrating one, and here's why: there's corn bi-products in almost every processed food we eat. Look at the label of a breakfast cereal, salad dressing, any and every candy, chewing gum, chocolate milk, juice...you get the point...
The sick angle: this morning I woke up and posted on Facebook that I was sick. A few hours later when I opened the door to my room, there was a can of soup waiting for me with a note saying, "Get Well! Love, the soup fairy." (or was it "the sick fairy?") It made me all warm and fuzzy inside to find that. I scoured the label. No corn products! And then I realized - it's chicken noodle soup. I can't eat the noodles. I'll just pick them out, I thought to myself happily (which is what I'll do when I eat it).
I mentioned THAT on Facebook as well, and when I returned to my dorm tonight after Hillel's seder, I found two more cans of soup waiting for me with a note that read, "the soup(sick?) fairy did her Passover fasting research, and hopes you can enjoy these soups." Aww, veggie soup! Aww...with corn. I WILL enjoy them...I'll just have to wait a little bit.
Wait, so why were you eating healthier?
Oh, right. Today I snacked on passover crackers with butter, a banana with peanut butter, strawberries, a clementine, and matzah ball soup. These foods are all pretty natural - I had a little kosher-for-pesach candy, but most of my snacking was MUCH healthier than usual. I'll have to keep that up after Passover ends.
Lent. I don't really get it. But I like that Passover and Lent/Ash Wednesday/Good Friday/Palm Sunday/Easter Sunday happen around the same time. It's good to see the parallels and commonalities in religions. I like that Lent gives people a reason to change. I've heard that people give things up for Lent, like soda or fast food, but some people I've talked to take things on. A friend of mine is going to read the Bible more often. Though I don't understand the intricacies of it, Lent seems like a good excuse to reach out, maybe volunteer more often than one would during the rest of the year.
Passover, too, has an opportunity for giving back. Religious Jews clear their houses of chometz entirely - no bread in the house. Some even have a separate set of dishes (in Ethiopia the Jews didn't have separate dishes, so they broke their old dishes and made new ones for Passover). The more observant Jews sell their chometz to a friend, often non-Jewish, and then buy it back from them after Passover. Instead of buying it back or having someone store it, why not donate it to a food pantry? And after passover's over, donate that extra matzah, too.
(hmmm. Well, this post was a lot more interesting in my head...hope you enjoyed.)
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