Whereas there’s lots to like about Passover — personally, I’m right here for the plagues and the charoset — matzo is usually excluded from the listing of causes to look ahead to the vacation. The unleavened bread, which is consumed through the seven (or eight) days of Passover in commemoration of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, has the flavour and texture of the affliction it’s meant to evoke. However the place some would possibly argue that it doesn’t matter which model of matzo you purchase, insofar as all of them look and style like constructing materials, anybody who has subjected their colon to a number of straight days of the stuff is aware of this to be unfaithful. So we determined to conduct a very unscientific style check to find out the least unhealthy matzo that’s available on grocery store cabinets. Whereas whole-wheat, spelt, and flavored matzot exist, we caught to plain to keep up a degree enjoying subject, akin to it’s, making exceptions just for gluten-free and egg matzo choices. As one taster mentioned upon seeing the containers of matzo that awaited us, “Let’s get constipated!”
The next listing is in no specific order, since the whole lot we tried was a mixture of good and unhealthy. Because the Jewish proverb says, hope for a miracle however don’t depend on it.
Manischewitz Unique Matzos (Unsalted)
Based in Cincinnati in 1888 and now primarily based in Bayonne, New Jersey, Manischewitz is a Passover cottage business unto itself, with merchandise starting from matzo and macaroons to carrot cake combine and the jarred gefilte fish that so reliably stokes concern and loathing in lots of a Jewish digestive tract. Simply in time for Passover 2024, the world’s high matzo producer rebranded its brand and packaging, creating a brand new visible id that goes heavy on heat orange hues and incorporates cute illustrated characters and eye-pleasing typography. There isn’t any indication that this makeover prolonged to what’s truly inside Manischewitz’s packaging. Its matzo, as one taster famous, “tastes like childhood.” That, nonetheless, is just not essentially a praise: Whereas tasters appreciated the matzo’s crunch, little air pockets, and “burn and char,” in addition they famous that it tastes, effectively, like flour, and is “form of laborious to get out of your mouth.” Extra particularly, it “turns into moist sand.” Which is unappealing! But additionally, given the origins of matzo, maybe solely acceptable.
Streit’s Passover Matzos
For 100 years, Streit’s was primarily based in a manufacturing facility on New York’s Decrease East Aspect, a neighborhood that was dwelling to hundreds of Jewish immigrants on the flip of the twentieth century. The Streit household offered the manufacturing facility to a rental developer in 2015 and relocated exterior of the town. At the moment, the corporate rivals Manischewitz for its breadth of kosher-for-Passover merchandise; it has been estimated that it controls some 40 % of the U.S. matzo market. Our tasters discovered that its matzo had extra char and larger bubbles than Manischewitz’s, and was additionally a bit thinner and crispier. The flavour, alternatively, was missing: One taster likened it to a “stale rice cake.” Like Manischewitz, that is matzo that is aware of the way to coat the tooth. Which is okay when you like the within of your mouth to really feel prefer it’s carrying a bed room slipper.
Yehuda Matzos
For those who’re the form of Jew who likes their matzo to return straight from the supply, then Yehuda is the droid you’re in search of. Baked in Jerusalem the Holy Metropolis (because it’s identified on the Yehuda web site) since 1949, Yehuda matzo shows a lot char that it resembles a Southern blot. The char additionally imbues it with a burnt taste that one taster in comparison with a “badly made Neapolitan crust,” whereas one other famous a beguiling trace of film popcorn butter. “It’s like Manischewitz, however a bit higher,” mentioned one other. All agreed it could work greatest with toppings, although in equity, the identical might be mentioned of each piece of matzo ever created.
Jerusalem 18 Minutes Matzos
Why the 18 minutes, it’s possible you’ll ask? Nice query. Matzo is meant to be baked inside 18 minutes of water touching the flour, as a result of, lengthy story quick, the Talmud says so. Slapping “18 minutes” on a field of matzo could seem redundant, however also can sign {that a} producer is lethal critical about this complete kosher-for-Passover enterprise. However that’s not the one motive Jerusalem’s matzo is distinct from its opponents. Matzo is commonly in comparison with cardboard in issues of each style and texture, however Jerusalem’s actually and really smells prefer it. Or, within the phrases of 1 taster, “it smells like Residence Depot.” And but! Its taste had a bewildering however bewitching word of margarine, and an alluring soupcon of ash. Texture-wise, it caught to the tooth like spackling — “I really feel like I’m going to be flossing all night time,” one taster mentioned. Put one other means, Jerusalem’s matzo is a reminder of what Passover is all about. “Now that’s matzo,” mentioned one other taster, with a mixture of approval and loathing. “That is what I consider after I consider matzo.”
Holyland Shmura Matzo
Shmura is the matzo of spiritual surveillance. Its title means “watched,” and watched it’s, from the second its wheat is harvested to the second it goes within the oven (that is additionally why it prices considerably greater than common matzo). The purpose is to make sure that the wheat by no means is available in contact with a single molecule of moisture, which may trigger the matzo to ferment and rise. A second, unspoken purpose, if our expertise was any indication, is seemingly to induce divine struggling in all who try and eat it. That is matzo that fights again: in opposition to your arms if you break it, in opposition to your jaw if you chew it. “If we’re speaking bread of affliction, that is affliction,” famous one taster. Its texture was in comparison with each a loofah and an emery board, although this rough-hewn high quality additionally prompted one taster to notice it was “the primary matzo I can see sustaining me throughout the desert.” Taste-wise, it drew comparisons to communion wafers (enjoyable reality: some Christians truly use matzo for communion), however largely “it simply tastes unhappy.” Nonetheless, not like different matzos, it didn’t coat the tooth — that will suggest it yields to tooth, which is fake. “I don’t prefer it, however I respect it,” one tester mentioned with grudging admiration. “It’s good for consuming by itself and enthusiastic about your sins.”
Streit’s Passover Egg Matzos
Compared to common matzos, egg matzos nearly qualify as dessert. Streit’s have a bit sweetness and are “very distinctly eggy,” qualities that led one taster to check their taste to pie crust and one other to comment they “might make a dessert with this.” One other was reminded of a Ritz cracker. The feel was tender and “very good”; one taster remarked that it could be excellent for making matzo brei. “That is the one one I need to preserve consuming,” mentioned one other, as everybody else nodded in settlement.
Yehuda Gluten-Free Matzo-Fashion Squares
Gluten-free matzo is a comparatively current innovation; as an alternative of flour and water, it’s an amalgam of assorted potato byproducts and binders. Yehuda makes use of honey, egg yolks, palm oil, water, and vinegar to solder its tapioca starch and potato starch and flakes collectively. The result’s surprisingly superb. It helps that the matzo additionally accommodates salt; its savory taste and crisp, barely greasy texture earned it comparisons to a large potato chip, a large saltine, and a french fry. Though it was essentially the most structurally unsound of the bunch, it was universally beloved by our tasters, comparatively talking. “I need to preserve consuming it,” mentioned one. “I’m gonna have to inform each Jew I do know,” mentioned one other. “It’s advantageous,” mentioned a 3rd. “Yeah, it’s rising on me.”
The Matzo Venture Barely Even Salted Matzo
It was solely a matter of time earlier than the artisans got here for matzo. About 3,200 years, to be actual. Based in 2014 by two summer season camp buddies decided “to bake a brand new tackle the culturally beloved, however historically flavorless field of matzo,” the Matzo Venture is much less a marvel of innovation than advertising and marketing: Its good-looking navy packaging goes laborious on the Jewish grandma shtick, with an illustrated bubbe who asks “Did you eat? Come and have a nosh.” The interesting fonts declare the bona fides of its “surprisingly scrumptious matzo” and beckon you to “Have fun custom (struggling non-obligatory).” In a a lot smaller, much less whimsical font, the field additionally informs you that the matzo inside is kosher, however not kosher for Passover. Making this, successfully, a really good cracker that’s of completely no use for observant Jews throughout Passover. And it actually is good: It’s received plenty of bubbles, a fragile texture, and doesn’t coat the tooth. The salt can be a welcome contact, and you may see it simply as a result of there’s no charring in anyway. “I might eat the fuck out of this on a regular basis as an everyday snack,” mentioned one taster, “but it surely most assuredly is just not the bread of affliction.” Which raises a nagging query: If you wish to preserve consuming it, is it actually matzo? And if it’s not kosher for Passover, is it actually matzo, or only a cracker that did time at Saturday faculty? Like the whole lot else Jewish, these are inquiries to encourage robust and divisive opinions quite than neat solutions. However as unleavened bread goes, you could possibly do lots worse.
Sophia Pappas is a Pittsburgh-based illustrator.
