Cult Kosher For Passover

The top 10 foods we love to eat during Pesach.

By Ronnie Fein for The Jewish Week

Passover’s almost here and supermarkets are starting to fill up with those kosher for Passover foods you can’t get, or wouldn’t care to eat, any other time of year. No, not matzah and potato starch: I mean the good stuff.

#10: Coca-Cola with the yellow top. The colored cap means the Coke is made with cane sugar, so it tastes the way it back in the day, before high fructose corn syrup took over the world. Corn, of course, is kitnyiot, that category of grains and legumes that are forbidden to Ashkenazi Jews during the holiday along with the more obvious foods like bread and pasta. Sarah Klinkowitz, author of the blog "Food, Words & Photos," says her family fights about which version actually tastes better. But taste aside, everyone knows that Coke made with sugar is healthier than that high fructose corn syrup kind, right? Ditto Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda, also made with sugar during Passover.

#9 Hashachar H’aole Special Cocoa Spread. Folks like Sina Miz at The Kosher Spoon like to wet their matzah just slightly under cold running water and then spread it with the chocolate. According to the scuttlebutt, this is an Israeli thing, and it means the holiday is coming. “ I’m getting excited for Pesach now!” Miz said.

#8 Manischewitz Coconut Patties. If you, like me, are always on a diet, you allow yourself to eat these candies—a cross between macaroons and Mound’s candy bars—only during Passover. My brother stocks them in his freezer and I actually could have them any old time. But I don’t. I really don’t.

#7 Tam Tams. Because they’re beyond crackers. “They make me want more of everything,” reflected Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me, who has found all sorts of interesting ways to use these savory old reliables: as soup croutons, for instance. Who knew?

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