Kosher Critic: Tapioca bread of affliction?

As the final lines of Megillat Esther were read in shuls across the country, kosher distributors, manufactures and grocery stores did not hear the words “He sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace for all their descendants,” but rather the fusillade report of pistols signaling the official start of the Passover shopping season. Despite the fact that the eight short days of Passover make up for merely 3% of the calendar year it accounts for almost 40% of kosher sales. The result is a rush to produce a motley variety of Passover products that entice consumers to purchase in even greater quantity.
My favorite of these Passover items is a “bread” cobbled together out of potato meal and tapioca flour. The result is a “bread” so unflinchingly realistic that Passover programs that served it had to remove it from the tables prior to meals because people who didn’t know any better were washing and saying a hamotzi over it. I eat it with cashew butter, jelly and bananas pan-fried while savoring the irony that I am not allowed to eat rice, beans or lentils because they are in appearance to similar to chametz.
As I stood in that aisle, recently stocked and swollen with brand new chametz dopplegangers, I thought “Dear Lord can I really make it eight days without instant blueberry pancakes?” And as I stood there amidst shoppers scrambling to fill their carts with 40% of their yearly kosher purchases, I thought of a time when I was in yeshiva and came to understand the forced undertaking of the fast of Behab a practice that until now had vexed me to no end.
Behab is an antiquated Ashkenazi custom possibly but not conclusively derived from the vague text of Iyov 1:5. It’s name spelled with the Hebrew letters Bet Hey Bet are an allusion to the Monday, Wednesday and subsequent Monday that following Rosh Chodesh after either Sukkot or Passover. The reason for Behab is to atone for any inadvertent sin or over indulgence we may have commuted over the course of the holiday. Every year as a student I would return to the yeshiva after the Passover holiday break, don my black hat, and on Bet Hey Bet say slichot and think to myself “Wait a minute. I have been eating the bread of affliction for eight solid days and spent a collected 27 hours steeped in prayer. What possible reason could I have for needing to fast and say slichot?”
As I stood there gazing at shelves festooned with products like imitation soy sauce, tapioca flour, macaroni, matzoh meal, pancake mix and a yellowish paste claiming to be “mustard,” I finally understood. I should still be celebrating Behab not because I over indulged but because I, and countless others, try everything in our power to make Passover feel like any other day.
Perhaps the problem is that many of us forget that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that all the foods from which we must abstain can be made better by virtue of our abstinence from them. As much as I love food, and I do love food, I am never completely satisfied by the plaid imitations of pasta or bagels that come from a box mix on Passover. I eat them without any real joy or verve and simply ingest them to feel like I am not being overly limited by my religious convictions. This year I think I will keep to matzoh and its basic derivatives so that when I am able to actually eat chametz at the end of eight short days I will have a greater appreciation for them.
I will try and remember that it is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt and how the point of the entire holiday is to remember that once we were slaves who never had the gastronomic technology or the necessary ingredients to transform their potatoes into fried cashew butter and banana sandwiches. This epiphany came as I watched a woman put 12 packages of chocolate covered marshmallows in her cart next to a single lonely box of matzoh.

Zechariah Mehler is a widely published food writer and expert in social marketing. Follow him on Twitter @thekoshercritic