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Matzah, matzo, or maẓẓah (; , : matzot or Ashkenazi Hebrew matzos) is an Unleavened bread that is part of Jewish cuisine and forms an integral element of the Passover festival, during which chametz (leavening agent and five grains deemed by halakha to be self-leavening) is forbidden.
According to the Torah, God commanded the IsraelitesExodus 12:15 (modernly, Jews and Samaritans) to eat only unleavened bread during the seven-day Passover festival. Matzah can be either soft like a pita or a crisp variety, widely produced commercially because of its long shelf life. The soft matzah only keeps for a day or so unless frozen; very limited commercial production, only in the period leading up to Passover, is available. Some versions of the crisp type are available all year.
Matzah meal and matzah cake meal is crisp matzah that has been ground. The cake meal has a very fine near flour-like consistency, useful in baking, while the standard matzah meal is somewhat coarser and used in cooking. Matzah meal is used to make matzah balls (kneidles/kneidlach), the principal ingredient of Matzah ball (often translated as "matzah ball soup"). Sephardic Jews typically cook with matzah itself rather than matzah meal.
Matzah that is Kashrut for Passover is limited in Ashkenazi Jews tradition to plain matzah made from flour and water. The flour may be made from Whole grain or Refined grains, but must be made from one of five grains: wheat, spelt, barley, rye, or oat. Some Sephardic communities allow matzah to be made with or fruit juice to be used throughout the holiday, while Ashkenazi Jews do not use such matzah on Passover, except in special circumstances, as for the sick and elderly.
Non-Passover matzah is not subject to ritual requirements and may use any kosher ingredients.
While oat is considered to be one of the five grains and does not itself contain gluten, matzah made from it would be gluten-free only if there were no contamination by gluten-containing grains. From 2013 some matzah manufacturers have produced gluten-free oat matzah certified kosher for Passover. Given the doubts about oats truly being one of the five grains, it has been suggested that matzah could be made from a mixture of 90% rice flour and 10% wheat flour (as rice is deemed so bland that the taste of wheat flour dominates, and thus meets ritual requirements), for those who can handle eating the small amount of wheat in this mixture. For those who can eat no wheat, eating oat matzah at the Seder is still considered the best option.
After baking, matzah may be ground into fine, or slightly coarser, crumbs, known as matzah meal, that can be used like flour during the week of Passover when flour can otherwise be used only to make matzah.
Flavored varieties of matzah are produced commercially, such as poppy seed- or onion-flavored. Oat and spelt matzah with kosher certification are produced. Oat matzah is generally suitable for those who cannot eat gluten. Whole wheat, bran and organic matzah are also available. Chocolate-covered matzah is a favorite among children, although some consider it "enriched matzah" and will not eat it during the Passover holiday. A quite different flat confection of chocolate and nuts that resembles matzah is sometimes called "chocolate matzah".
Mass-produced matzah contains typically 111 calories per 1-ounce/28g (USDA Nutrient Database), about the same as rye crispbread.
Haredi Judaism is scrupulous about the supervision of matzah and have the custom of baking their own or at least participating in some stage of the baking process. Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Sanz ruled in the 19th century that machine-made matzah were chametz. According to that opinion, handmade non- shmurah matzah may be used on the eighth day of Passover outside of the Holy Land. However the non-Hasidic Haredi community of Jerusalem follows the custom that machine-made matzah may be used, with preference to the use of shĕmurah flour, in accordance with the ruling of Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, who ruled that machine-made matzah may be preferable to hand made in some cases. The commentators to the Shulchan Aruch record that it is the custom of some of Diaspora Jewry to be scrupulous in giving Dough offering from the dough used for baking "Matzat Mitzvah" (the shĕmurah matzah eaten during Passover) to a Kohen child to eat.Ba'er Hetev to Yoreh De'ah ch. 322 (minor par. 7), Shabbatai HaKohen to above chapter
"Egg (sometimes enriched) matzah" are matzot usually made with fruit juice, often grape juice or apple juice, instead of water, but not necessarily with eggs themselves. There is a custom among some Ashkenazi Jews not to eat them during Passover, except for the elderly, infirm, or children, who cannot digest plain matzah; these matzot are considered to be kosher for Passover if prepared otherwise properly. The issue of whether egg matzah is allowed for Passover comes down to whether there is a difference between the various liquids that can be used. Water facilitates a fermentation of grain flour specifically into what is defined as chametz, but the question is whether fruit juice, eggs, honey, oil or milk are also deemed to do so within the strict definitions of Jewish laws regarding chametz.
The Talmud, Pesachim 35a, states that liquid food extracts do not cause flour to leaven the way that water does. According to this view, flour mixed with other liquids would not need to be treated with the same care as flour mixed with water. The Tosafot (commentaries) explain that such liquids only produce a leavening reaction within flour if they themselves have had water added to them and otherwise the dough they produce is completely permissible for consumption during Passover, whether or not made according to the laws applying to matzot.
As a result, Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, author of the Shulchan Aruch or "Code of Jewish Law" () granted blanket permission for the use of any matzah made from non-water-based dough, including egg matzah, on Passover. Many egg matzah boxes no longer include the message, "Ashkenazi custom is that egg matzah is only allowed for children, elderly and the infirm during Passover." Even amongst those who consider that enriched matzot may not be eaten during Passover, it is permissible to retain it in the home.
The matzah itself is not Hamotzi (meaning that it is Mezonot).
Sephardim use matzah soaked in water or stock to make pies or lasagne, known as mina, méguena, mayena or .
Some Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians use leavened bread, as in the east there is the tradition, based upon the gospel of John, that leavened bread was on the table of the Last Supper. In the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, unleavened bread called qǝddus qurban in Ge'ez, the liturgical language of the Eritreans and Ethiopians, is used for communion.
Saint Thomas Christians living on the Malabar coast of Kerala, India have the customary celebration of Passover in their homes. On the evening before Good Friday, Pesaha Appam is made at home. It is made with unleavened flour and they consume a sweet drink made up of coconut milk and jaggery along with this bread. On the Pesaha night, the bread is baked (steamed) immediately after rice flour is mixed with water and they pierce it many times with handle of the spoon to let out steam so that the bread will not rise (this custom is called "juthante kannu kuthal" in the Malayalam language meaning "piercing the bread according to the custom of Jews"). This bread is cut by the head of the family and shared among the family members.
Preparation
Matzah dough is quickly mixed and rolled out without an autolyse step as used for leavened breads. Most forms are pricked with a fork or a similar tool to keep the finished product from puffing up, and the resulting flat piece of dough is cooked at high temperature until it develops dark spots, then set aside to cool and, if sufficiently thin, to harden to crispness. Dough is considered to begin the leavening process 18 minutes from the time it gets wet; sooner if eggs, fruit juice, or milk is added to the dough. The entire process of making matzah takes only a few minutes in efficient modern matzah bakeries.
Variations
There are two major forms of matzah. Prior to the late 18th century, all matzah was soft and relatively thick, but thinner, crisper matzah later became popular in parts of Europe due to its longer shelf life. With the invention of the first matzah-making machine in France in 1839, cracker-like mass-produced matzah became the most common form in Europe and North America and is now ubiquitous in all Ashkenazic and most Sephardic communities. Yemenite Jews and Iraqi Jews continue to use a form of soft matzah which looks like Greek pita or like a tortilla. Soft matzah is made only by hand, and generally with shmurah flour.
Shmurah matzah
Shĕmura ("guarded") matzah ( matsa shĕmura) is made from grain that has been under special supervision from the time it was harvested to ensure that no fermentation has occurred, and that it is suitable for eating on the first night of Passover. ( Shĕmura wheat may be formed into either handmade or machine-made matzah, while non- shĕmura wheat is only used for machine-made matzah. It is possible to hand-bake matzah in shĕmura style from non-shmurah flour—this is a matter of style, it is not actually in any way shĕmura—but such matzah has rarely been produced since the introduction of machine-made matzah.)
Egg matzah
The requirement for eating Matzah at the Seder cannot be fulfilled with "egg matza."
Chocolate-covered matzah
Chocolate-covered matzahthese are chocolate covered egg matzo, not the subsequently originated "chocolate matzo" was sold in boxes as a standard product, alongside boxes of egg matzah.
Cooking with matzah
Matzah may be used whole, broken, chopped ("matzah farfel"), or finely ground ("matzah meal"); to make numerous matzah-based cooked dishes. These include matzo ball, which are traditionally served in chicken soup; matzo brei, a dish of Ashkenazi origin made from matzah soaked in water, mixed with beaten egg, and fried; helzel, poultry neck skin stuffed with matzah meal; matzo pizza, in which the piece of matzah takes the place of pizza crust and is topped with melted cheese and sauce; and kosher for Passover cakes and cookies, which are made with matzah meal or a finer variety called "cake meal" that gives them a denser texture than ordinary baked foods made with flour. Hasidic Judaism Jews do not cook with matzah, believing that mixing it with water may allow leavening; this stringency is known as gebrochts. However, Jews who avoid eating gebrochts will eat cooked matzah dishes on the eighth day of Passover outside the Land of Israel, as the eighth day is of rabbinic and not Torah origin.
In Christianity
used by the Latin Church as well as in some Protestantism traditions for the Eucharist are flat, unleavened bread. The main reason for the use of this bread is the belief that, because the Last Supper was described in the Synoptic Gospels as a Passover meal, the unleavened matzah bread was used by Jesus when he held it up and said "this is my body". All Byzantine Rite churches use leavened bread for the Eucharist as this symbolizes the risen Christ.
World War II
At the end of World War II, the National Jewish Welfare Board had a matzah factory (according to the American Jewish Historical Society, it was probably the Manischewitz matzah factory in New Jersey) produce matzah in the shape of a large V sign, for use in the U.S. and military bases overseas by Jewish military personnel for . American Jewish Historical Society, March 22, 2007 retrieved Oct. 21, 2011
In film
Streit's is the story of the last family-owned matzah bakery in America during their final year at their historic New York City factory.
See also
External links
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