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You are here: Home / Music / Late Night Open Thread: Chag Pesach Sameach!

Late Night Open Thread: Chag Pesach Sameach!

by | 62 Comments

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(h/t Siubhan Duinne)

From the Moscow Times‘ food writer, “Sink or Swim With Matzoh Ball Soup”:

… When the Jews migrated to Eastern Europe, they discovered and adopted that region’s popular dumplings, known as knödel, or in Russian klyotska, and these words lent their vowels and consonants to the word for dumpling in German-Yiddish, knaidel (or kneydl). During Passover, Jews made their knaidel dumplings out of matzoh to adhere to the dietary strictures of the holiday, and when they were forced to flee another authoritarian regime in the nineteenth century, they took matzoh and knaidel with them, where are still enjoyed today in delis all over the North America.

Matzoh went mainstream in the nineteenth century thanks to a Lithuanian rabbi called Abramson, who assumed the identity of a dead man to avoid military conscription in the Russian empire. The rabbi became Dov Behr Manischewitz, and after emigrating to the United States, he started manufacturing matzoh in Cincinnati. Thanks to savvy marketing, very soon matzoh wasn’t just for Passover anymore…

Like its German and Russian cousins, matzoh balls are soft, pliant dumplings, but while knödel and klyotska are often stuffed with meat, smothered in gravy, or used to stretch a hearty stew, matzoh balls are most often floated in broth. They are just as easy to make as their Eastern European counterparts — by combining matzoh meal, eggs, and… well, then opinion divides, and fights break out over the remaining ingredients. The challenges here are twofold: one, to adhere to Jewish kosher laws which forbids serving meat and milk products together, making it impossible to use butter, cheese, or cream to bind the dumplings. Passover forbids using yeast or anything like it, including baking powder, which could make the dumplings a desired light, pillowy airiness.

And so, the debate rages through the Jewish world: how to make the best matzoh balls while remaining compliant with religious and dietary laws, and preferences? Do you want a “sinker” or a “swimmer,” a denser matzoh ball that absorbs the broth and sinks to the bottom of the pot after it’s been cooked, or a “swimmer” that bobs on the surface? …

There is a full recipe at the link, if y’all want to argue about authenticity or ingredients.

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    smike

    Leave a comment, it says. So, assured that my email address will not be published, I do. Now, what was I saying…?

  3. 3.

    Comrade Colette

    @smike: Did you eat yet? You look so thin! I’ll fix you a little something.

    Jewish mama instinct is irrepressible, even though our seder isn’t until later this week due to travel.

  4. 4.

    StringOnAStick

    We are having a screaming wind event in front of a storm here in central Oregon, and lost power from downed trees a couple hours ago. Then our neighbors texted that the fence between us and their 15’ pine tree were coming down so we ran over with scrap 2by 4’s, nails and hammer. I got the fence well stabilized by bracing it against a new perpendicular section, and we braced the tree with a number of pieces. The wind is supposed to die down soon. Good thing because farmers/ranchette owners were apparently burning fields in the face of a predicted high wind event and now on the NW edge of Bend there’s a fire and mandatory evacuations due to wind-driven brush fire.

  5. 5.

    Jackie

    @StringOnAStick: It’s blowing trees and fences down and we’ve got a sand storm creating hazardous driving conditions here in Southeastern  WA. It must be March Madness.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    @StringOnAStick: We’re getting that storm too. I was going to venture out of the house today but heard that wind and went into big ol’ NOPE territory.

    AL you around? found something neat for the coronavirus thread.

  7. 7.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Trump wanders into Mar-a-Lago wedding reception, proceeds to run through a laundry list of his own personal grievances instead of toasting the happy couple

    The humiliation of being a 1 term president, who lost the popular vote twice; who is 1 of only 3 to be impeached, and the only person impeached twice; facing bankruptcy and prison; he can’t return to his Manhattan playground, stuck in a shit-hole with no one who will take his calls – so what does he do, he wonders around the building whigning to complete strangers.

  9. 9.

    StringOnAStick

    @Jackie:

     

    @Yutsano:

    We’re sitting here with candles burning, otherwise it’s pretty dark in here!  This is the longest power outage we’ve been through in a long time but we used to live in a large metro area. The addition of fire and mandatory evacuations about 10 miles NW of here definitely adds to the unease.  I hope the winds back off soon.

  10. 10.

    craigie

    Today is the first day in LA that has not been cold since I can’t remember (a couple of months at least, which is an unusually long cold season) Cold for us is high 40s / low 50s, and yeah, I know. Today it actually feels like Spring.​

  13. 13.

    Jackie

    @StringOnAStick: Welcome to the east side of the mountains! I hope you get power back soon! The winds aren’t predicted to die down to a more gentle 25mph until earlish morning.

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @StringOnAStick: Fortunately you guys don’t get the dust that Jackie and I do. That comes from the farms that haven’t planted yet plus sands from the semi-arid region we live in. But the winds? Oh yeah, we get that here a lot!

  21. 21.

    Geoduck

    Lots of wind and rain in SW Washington state, but so far the power has stayed on. Surprised and glad to hear they were able to get that ship unstuck so fast.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    Secret #1 to better matzo balls is including seltzer. Or, in a pinch, club soda (which has salts in it, so compensate by cutting back when adding NaCl).

    Secret #2 is to not pack the batter tight when forming into balls.

    Secret #3 is keep it simple. Eggs, oil, liquid, salt, pepper, matzo meal. Nada más. Let the broth and its spices infuse their flavors.

    Flouting tradition, knaidelach of a different color.

  23. 23.

    Ivan X

    I was asked to lead my first Seder in 51 years for two nights in row (mom, then in laws). Was stressed but I think it worked out all right.

  24. 24.

    TriassicSands

    @StringOnAStick:

    I’m in Washington on the Olympic Peninsula and the winds have been wild all day — a day that included a driving rainstorm, which is unusual for this area. The wind warnings are in effect here until 3AM.

    In reference to the earlier thread,
    No Way to Prevent This…
    there was a road rage murder yesterday (?) in which the murderer pulled up along side a car, which had apparently gotten too close to the murderer’s car, rolled down the window, and shot into the passenger door several times, killing a 47-year-old woman (wife and mother). Naturally, there is no way to prevent such a senseless act of violence. I suppose the answer is, as usual, more guns. We could have running gun battles on our highways and suburban streets.

    At the time the article was posted, they didn’t know the identity of the murderer. What a sick society.

  26. 26.

    Comrade Colette

    @patrick II: You got me all excited! But alas, the linked article is dated last August and appears to be about the original indictment. If there’s something recent, I’m prepared to be excited all over again.

  27. 27.

    JWR

    Prolly already mentioned, but har f*cking har!

    In settling the suit, Ms Greene is also paying $10,000 of the group’s legal fees, which they have said will be donated to gun reform organisations.“Because of this PAC’s frivolous lawsuit against me, I’m not allowed to block people that threaten my life and my children’s lives every single day on social media,” Ms Greene tweeted.“And they are bragging about donating the money to organizations that want to take away my guns, so I couldn’t defend myself and my children, when people show up to murder us like they threaten.”

    And you know, one would expect a MoC to talk gooder when in public, where people wanna kill her, outside, in her house. But then I’m sure her limits are what her voters crave. (Just like TFG.)​​​​
     
    ETA, dang comment formatting! This here blurg is broken.

  30. 30.

    piratedan

    @JWR: well it’s hard to cut a sympathetic jib when you call publicly for the execution of the Speaker of the House and then just believe that the majority of the nation is just gonna let that shit pass.

    Lets hope that she runs thru her family’s money in short order.

  34. 34.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Steeplejack: I think it may have something to do with the Oscars, there were an unusual amount of rent-a-cops at Union Station tonight and both the old ticketing area and passenger waiting area were off limits.  Yeah, you shouldn’t need a permit to photograph a public building(Union Station is owned by LA’s Metro).

  35. 35.

    patrick II

    @Comrade Colette:

    I am sorry.  I followed that link from a new comment on twitter and thought it was new too.  There has been new developments recently however,

    Washington Post March26, 2021

    The New York attorney general’s office has partnered with Manhattan’s district attorney to investigate Stephen K. Bannon for the alleged fundraising scam that prompted his federal pardon in the waning hours of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to people familiar with the matter. The move adds prosecutorial firepower to a criminal case widely seen as an attempted end-run around the former president’s bid to protect a political ally.

    There is also some coordination with an Italian investigation, so for Bannon it seems to be a matter of time. Just not yet though.
    I clearly have to be more careful following links from twitter. Sorry about that.

  36. 36.

    TriassicSands

    @JWR:

    It’s interesting to contrast her whiny comments to those of AOC after she settled a similar suit. Ocasio-Cortez apologized for blocking her critic. Greene claims that she can’t block people who want to kill her. That is stupid on many levels. Her critics want more gun control, because they are opposed to killing people, and are pretty unlikely to want to kill Greene (even if some might be grateful to awake one morning and discover that Greene had been abducted by aliens and wouldn’t be returning to Earth anytime soon). Also blocking critics could just make them more angry and frustrated and in the unlikely event that any were violence-prone that frustration could lead to action. But extremely unlikely.

    MTG’s mother: What do you want to be when you grow up?

    MTG: A gun-toting victim.

  38. 38.

    Comrade Colette

    @patrick II: No problem; based on those newer links, I have at least 35% residual excitement in stock and can ramp up production rapidly.

    Fuck that guy, even if it takes the combined efforts of Cy Vance, Tish James, and the painfully inept Italian judicial system to do it. (One agency for each layer of sweaty popped-collar shirt?)

  40. 40.

    Beautifulplumage

    @Mary G: perfect segue for this twitter thread

    http://<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>The neighbours just put the house up for sale. Couldn't resist checking it out on Zoopla. <br><br>That's our bloody cat. <a href=”https://t.co/w4YnxNZOLq”>pic.twitter.com/w4YnxNZOLq</a></p>&mdash; Michael Hubank (@generoom) <a href=”https://twitter.com/generoom/status/1376084811421454337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 28, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

  41. 41.

    JWR

    @TriassicSands:

    Also blocking critics could just make them more angry and frustrated…

    Yep. No libs to own would turn it into an MTG pity Parler! (And where’s the fun in that?)

  44. 44.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I just posted a comment to you and FYWP ate it.

    I don’t think you need a permit to photograph a public building, especially from the sidewalk. I used to carry a copy of the photographers’ rights in my camera bag after an encounter with a thuggish security guard told me I wasn’t allowed to photograph the building I was standing in front of, and that the company had also bought the sidewalk when they bought the building; I laughed at him. I crossed the street and changed my lens because the angle was wrong for the shot I wanted. He stood there and watched me, and sulked.

    The.

  46. 46.

    opiejeanne

    @Beautifulplumage: That’s pretty funny.

    Not surprised that it was an orange cat. Most cats that color are boys, and they tend to wander. Our experience with orange toms is that they are bums, will go home with anyone.

  47. 47.

    Beautifulplumage

    And speaking of the site working, what are sone favorite ad blocking extensions on chrome folks use? Right now I can’t even see what I’m typing because the fucking banner ad is taking up all the space between the keyboard and the .top of the window. They got worse again, and I’m really really tired of the clickbait articles that show up between post. Thank you in advance.

  50. 50.

    JWR

    @Beautifulplumage: ​the fucking site has to work.
    Tell me about it! My first comment on this thread worked fine in Visual mode, but when I wanted to delete a comma, I clicked Edit Comment, deleted said comma, and boom, all was borked again. Let’s see what this Text mode comment does.​
    Yep. Edit Comment adds all that “p data-mce-fragment=”1” stuff. And nothing appears in Visual mode.

  51. 51.

    Beautifulplumage

    @JWR: and now I see I don’t really know how to embed tweets correctly, so fuck me and all apologies to Steeplejack. Someday my links will look as nice in their little boxes as everyone else’s does.

  53. 53.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Beautifulplumage: Try Brave browser. They have ad blocking built in. You can also turn off embedded Twitter and still click on individual tweets to view them.

    Yeah, the comment box is weird tonight.

  54. 54.

    Martin

    Looks like the fun is over. The Ever Given is floating.

    Thank you Ever Given. We needed the distraction.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    One other notation (if you’ve never made them before). When forming the batter into balls, make them smaller than the size you want them to end up as when being served, as they will expand while being boiled.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    I wonder if Anne Laurie’s laptop is feeling okay. The Covid update post is running late today.

  58. 58.

    JAFD

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Been wondering about this.  Have friend who’s model railroader.  Used to live in Mount Holly, NJ, sort-of-picturesque little town.  Thot of taking pics of buildings there, converting to files to 3-D-print models of them.  Now I know architects have copyright on plans, can’t put up building if you don’t pay their royalties – but does anyone have rights on building a century old ???

    Asked my lawyer friends, wunovdezedaze maybe I can afford to have them look it up…

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: In W’s days, guards told me not to take a picture of the embassy building in Budapest.

    Everyone is a terrorist or a dupe helping terrorists, you see.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Sorry they hassled you.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Shana

    @NotMax: Back when we used to have a large potluck seder at our house with about 30 people I got in the habit of making several double batches of matzo balls in the weeks ahead of Passover and freezing them. Easy, put them on a cookie sheet for a few hours in the freezer and then plop into a ziplock bag. Then on the day of the seder I put them in the pot with the broth to thaw and reheat for several hours at a low burner setting. They slowly thaw and absorb some chicken broth flavor and are always soft and yummy. I also use schmaltz for the fat in the mixture, the only time I do use it.

  62. 62.

    Shana

    @JAFD: My architect father used to design and build his own model railroad buildings all the time, frequently modeled on existing buildings.

    My guess is that unless you’re planning to sell the buildings based on the photos who would know? I would think it’s fair use.

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