Marvin Stoloff
And All The Gals At

hilsum

Picking And Choosing
In The Passover Pantry

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BENHAM DAYANIM

Special to The Jewish News

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t's Passover time again,
and Jews all over the
world are faced with the
perennial question: whole
wheat, egg or regular?
The reference, of course, is
to unleavened bread, or
matzah.
Matzah is the bread of
deliverance, symbolizing the
haste with which our distant
ancestors departed the land of
their bondage.
Yet, to look at today's
Passover cornucopia, one
wonders if contemporary
Jews would not need at least
a month and a U-Haul truck
to accomplish the same feat.
What would Passover be
without a pantry full of Bar-
ton's candies, usually more
than one eats the entire year;
Season's salad dressing,
Season's potato chips,
Season's . . . well, you get the
idea.
In fact, it's a good bet that
right now if you were to put
down this article, stride to
your kitchen and peer into
the dim, dusty recesses of
your food cupboards, behind
the boxes of half-eaten cereal
and the ubiquitous canned
vegetables, you would spy one
or two telltale remnants of
last Passover's shopping fren-
zy.
Ever wonder why it seems
perhaps a half-dozen brands
dominate so completely the
Passover market, for a brief
week filling the pantry of the
observant with unfamiliar
names scarcely found during
the other 51 weeks of the
calendar year?
There are over 50 kashrut
organizations in the United
States, ranging from the
"O.U." of the Union of Or-
thodox Jewish Congregations
of America, which is the
largest certification agency, to
the "Parallelogram K," under
Rabbi Dr. Bernard Poupko in
Pittsburgh, who affixes his
seal to only one brand of soft
drinks.
This multiplicity of groups
confronts the kosher con-
sumer with an array of
signatures, many strange and
unfamiliar.
Yet, come Pesach time, this
baffling array all but disap-
pears, as many of the smaller .
certifications refuse to grant
special"Kosher for Passover"
dispensation.
Additionally, many pro-
ducts that possess "kosher
potential" year-round cannot
likewise receive Passover cer-

tification simply because they
include ingredients that in-
trinsically are unacceptable,
or, in kashrut parlance,
lametztik'.
As a result of these con-
siderations, kashrut agencies
certify far fewer companies
for Passover than during the
year. For example, "K-COR,"
a large, regional agency bas-
ed in Detroit, supervises ap-
proximately 60 entities nor-
mally, but only one-third that
number for Passover.
Rabbi Yechezkel Zweig, O.U.
rabbinic coordinator of
Passover supervision, said
that only a small percentage
request Passover seals. He
added that preparations for
the festival begin the day
after the previous year's
Passover holiday.
The O.U. certifies approx-
imately 200 firms for Pesach,
compared with 1,100 for the
rest of the year.

Rabbi Benjamin Shandalov,
kashrut administrator for the
Chicago Rabbinical Council,
or "cRc," also noted that
Passover procedures are "com-
plicated and time-
consuming," starting toward
the end of December.
He argued, however, with
claims that manufacturers
resist Pesach certification
merely because of the in-
convenience, stressing that
many products are either not
certifiable or not necessary
for the eight-day holiday.
Not surprisingly, companies
such as Streits, whose
primary income stems from
matzah and its derivatives,
eagerly embrace supervision,
gearing the focus of their en-
tire year to Passover time.
In fact, Streits, which
distributes to a dozen coun-
tries throughout North and
South America, accounts for
at least 60 percent of its sales
during the Passover period.
According to company Vice
President Renee Kaplan,
Streits sells seven million
pounds of matzah and
matzah-related products,
such as farfel and matzah
meal, during this time of year,
not including its line of other
Passover foods.
The answer to the initial
query of this article, concern-
ing which brand of matzah
most prefer, is somewhat
remarkable.
Despite the fitness craze of
the past few years and the
widely publicized hazards of
cholesterol, the respective
popularity of the three types
of matzot remains relatively
static. ❑

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 61