Passover treat: Haroset

—by Anne Holzman

After the stories of the escape from Egypt, the songs (louder with each glass of wine, it seems), the recitations of questions and answers and plagues... after all this comes the harbinger of a very late dinner, the haroset.

I always wolf down great piles of the sweet, sticky fruitnut relish. I’ve learned to enjoy a few shreds of horseradish balanced on top, although I can’t compete with the really diehard heat-swallowers at the table. A shard of matzoh makes a convenient vehicle for getting it all from plate to mouth.

Growing up Christian, I always thought Passover was about deprivation. Since joining a Jewish family, I’ve discovered it’s more of a friendly challenge: how to turn fast into feast, disaster into legend... and cement into a delicious appetizer.

Haroset (accent on the long O in the middle, and the T nearly swallowed as a soft S—at least in the Eastern European tradition we follow) is one of the required foods for a seder, symbolizing the mortar used by Jewish slaves to build for their Egyptian masters. It’s the last item to be passed, following wine, matzoh, parsley dipped in saltwater, and horseradish that gets eaten by itself before being cooled off by haroset. It’s therefore not only the tastiest of the required foods; it also means the matzoh ball soup is coming next, followed by whatever main dish the chief cook has decided to wow us with this year.

We make so much haroset, in so many different flavors, that it’s available in the fridge for days afterward. (We even make a nut-free mix of fruit and wine for one nut-averse family member.) It makes a delicious salad (if chunky) or matzoh spread (if ground to a pasty consistency). Maybe it helps keep the digestive system moving all those eggs and wads of matzoh along, too, during the breadless week that follows.

Haroset normally contains red wine, and anything other than honey-sweet Manischewitz can taste too tart. Grape juice (or maybe pomegranate? blueberry?) would be better than a dry red.

The basic Eastern European (Ashkenazic) haroset is adapted from Joan Nathan’s The Jewish Holiday Kitchen. In our family, it wouldn’t quite feel like Passover without a few bites of this.