Passover Lamb, er ... Fish?

Piscatory pleasures to lure your thoughts away from the woes of the world.

Hook

It’s Passover. I’m not Jewish but in addition to treasuring my Judeo-Christian heritage, I have many friends who are Jewish — the Torah observant kind.

So, in researching Passover traditions and the Passover Sedar meal in particular, I discovered something that I did not know: Sephardic charoset is “a marvelous condiment for broiled, steamed, or poached fish year-round, and can even be used as a stuffing for baked fish.” [Traditional Jewish Cooking by Betty S. Goldberg, Jonathan David Publishers, Inc., 1994, 1997]

Cool! Who knew? So what the heck is charoset? Well, it is a sweet fruit-nut mixture that is prepared and consumed during the Passover Seder to symbolize the mortar made by the Israelites during their enslavement in Egypt. If you are not familiar with the history of the Israelites, the narrative of their enslavement in Egypt is primarily chronicled in the book of Exodus. The word ‘remember’ is found more than 300 times in scripture and surely, the celebration of Passover is all about remembrance—a reminder of God’s power, protection and deliverance.

Because Pharaoh would not release the people of Israel from bondage, God responded by vowing to kill every firstborn in Egypt. To spare the firstborn children of the Israelites dwelling in Egypt, God told them to mark their doorposts with lamb’s blood so that the destroyer would “pass over” their homes. God did as he said he would. Even Pharoah’s son was killed.

Yikes. That’s a lot of woe! Quick! Back to fish!

In case you’re even vaguely intrigued to give it a try, here’s the recipe for “Sephardic Date Charoset” to use as condiment and/or stuffing for your fish dishes:

Ingredients:

2 cups pitted dates (or figs and/or dried apricots)

1 cup almonds (whole or slivered, blanched or unblanched)

Pinch to 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup orange juice

Directions:

1. Chop the fruit and almonds together until the pieces are very small, almost a paste if you like.

2. Mix in the cinnamon to taste, then the orange juice. Refrigerate until serving.

3. 
   

That’s it! Too easy not to try!

Line

I really don’t mean for this blog to be primarily about food. Really. It just so happens, though, that I discovered more weird … er, I mean, ‘limited edition’ flavors of Goldfish crackers this week. Just in case you want to try them while they’re still available, I thus need to be timely and tell you about them NOW.

So here goes.

Somewhat of a continuation of the last blog’s coverage of sweet Goldfish flavors, I discovered these ‘Butterbeer’ butterscotch flavored Goldfish grahams. Even though I was admittedly disappointed that the Goldfish didn’t exactly resemble the cookie shapes on the package, the butterscotch flavor was actually quite butterscotchy and good! Well, for the first twenty or so fish. After that, the pervasive ‘graham’ element took over and once again coated my teeth with a velvety, fuzzy kind of graham cracker moss akin to that of the Berry, Cinnamon Roll and Vanilla Cupcake graham Goldfish varieties. Yuck!

But were the following non-sweet, savory Goldfish options I discovered any better? NO! Although if you do like spicy snacks, you might want to check out the pickle ones. You will taste only heat, no pickle.

Ummm … has anyone here ever had or used Old Bay seasoning? On fish? Poultry? Any type of edible creature? Am I the only one who hasn’t? Given these poor little unsuspecting little cracker fishes literally swimming in it as my only point of reference for it, I won’t ever be trying it. Nope. Double yuck!

Anyone recall when Lay’s potato chips hosted a contest of sorts to come up with new chip flavors one (or two?) decades ago? I officially suggested “Oyster Shooter” chips. Essentially, my flavor suggestion was just cocktail sauce (ketchup and horseradish). When I waitressed at the French Outpost on Mackinac Island in 1982, our signature entree was a fried shrimp basket that included a sizeable side of ridged potato chips. As a starving and broke teenager, I couldn’t afford the shrimp. I therefore just dunked the chips into the cocktail sauce and I kid you not, if blindfolded, it tasted no different to me than the fried shrimp dunked into it. Lay’s rejected my idea, though. Maybe calling it “Oyster Shooter” was too exotic. Or maybe it implied beer or vodka was involved … hmmm. Oh well, their loss. If you’ve never dunked a chip into cocktail sauce, I wholeheartedly recommend it! Yummm!

Sinker

Directly following the Passover celebration, Christians celebrate Easter. It’s supposed to be a remembrance celebration of the resurrection of Jesus (Yeshua), the long-awaited Messiah who died and then came back to life on the third day after to conquer death and sin. Yep, yet another — the supreme — celebration of a reminder of God’s power, protection and deliverance.

But is that what comes to mind to a great majority of people who supposedly celebrate Easter? Nope. It’s rabbits. Chocolate ones.

Whaaaaaaaaat??!!??

Yea, I know. More than anything would I love to expound upon this utterly perplexing topic but I’m not only out of words, I’ve already got more than 250 extra ones. Rats. Quickly then, I shall just suggest an alternative for the masses who seek to ingest the mighty cacao bean in this fine month of April:

Enjoy my fishy friends! Enjoy! ‘Til next time … ><>