6/4/01

Kitniyot, I Kid You Not

Nothing is more complicated than food shopping for Pessah.

    Supermarket shopping is easy if you're a Jew in Israel.
    Everything is "kosher."
    On Pessah, everything is "kosher for Pessah."
    Shopping for Pessah, you need one of everything, so you don't even need a list.
    Nothing could be easier.
    But conversely, it is also true that it's hard to be a Jew, and more so if you're a Jew in Israel. It is our nature to take something simple -- supermarket shopping, for example -- and make it impossibly complicated.
    Nowhere else on earth is acquiring food as complicated as here, at this time of year.
    One of my kids offered to come with me to the super. Basic animal instinct, I figured: the little cub learning how to hunt for victuals. "Other way around, Daddy: I've been learning about this in school," she said. "And you're going to need a lot of help."
    It might not be a bad idea, I conceded, to bring someone along to push the cart.

    "SHOPPING IS not as simple as it looks," I explained when we got to the store. "Y'see, you have to look at the price, and divide that by the weight, and factor in the special offers, and which package looks nicer, and that's how you decide which brand to buy. Understand?"
    "I think so. Of course, you also have to check the 'gredients."
     "Not really. Like this here jar of peanut butter. You can assume it's peanuts with butter."  
    "Yeah, well I'm not gonna eat it unless it's low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar, cholesterol-free, no MSG, no preservatives, you have to check if there's polyunsaturated oil, and food coloring -- God forbid!"
    "What?!"
    "Like I said, we're learning about this."
    "Who's your teacher, Phyllis Glazer? It's fanatics like -- aw, never mind; I'll let you choose the peanut butter."
    "We can't buy peanut butter for Pessah, because of kitniyot."
    "Look here, child, I can't go these eight days without peanut butter, so on Pessah I compromise: I become Moroccan. They eat nuts."
    "Moroccans don't eat peanut butter."
    "This one does."
    One of us was about to throw a tantrum, so I said the hell with it, I could always sneak out later when she was asleep to buy it.
    She announced that we couldn't buy anything, really, until I had decided which hechsher we would abide by.
    I explained, tersely, that if it says "kosher" on it, that's kosher enough for me. She was appalled.
    She made a pitch for Rav Landau, but allowed that Auerbach would suffice, except for chickens.
    I made a U-turn and headed for the fruits and veg. I'd be safe there. A potato is a potato is a potato, right?
    "Wrong, Daddy. It's a shmitta year."
    "Gimme a break!"
    "We have to find out if they come from Belgium. Belgian potatoes are allowed. Go ask the manager."
    "D'you really think --"
    "And you have to ask him about heter mechira," she added. "That's really important."
    "That's it. I'm taking you out of that school."
    It turns out, the only thing we're allowed to eat without incurring the wrath of God is the plastic bags.

    "SHOPPING IS not as simple as it looks," she explained. "You have to think about not just if it's kosher, but who gives the hechsher, and even then everybody argues if it's OK; and maybe it's kosher, with the right hechsher, but it's not good for you, so you have to read all the nutritional information, and then there's our dietary restrictions and various allergies, not to mention the due date, and if it's made in Israel -- you can't even think of buying anything until you've checked all that. And you need to know if it's pareve, or meat, or dairy."
    "Is that it?"
    "No. Everything is twice as complicated this time of year, because of Pessah, and ten times as complicated this year, because of shmitta. But it doesn't even end this year, because you're allowed to eat the fruit but not the vegetables, except for some fruits and certain vegetables, while next year, you can eat most of the vegetables but not all of the fruit -- that is, depending on where it comes from. And even if it's allowed, you shouldn't buy it sometimes, like if it comes from Gaza, which is kosher shmitta-wise, but it'll give you diarrhea."
    "So --"
    "Wait, I'm not finished. You wouldn't want to eat anything until you're sure of the heter mechira. You need to know if you're Sephardi or Ashkenazi. You have to check the date on the hechsher, because if it was kosher for Pessah last year, it's not kosher for Pessah this year. There mustn't be any suspicion of tevel, which is the tax on a portion of the crops for the kohanim, and I guess you have to know if you're a kohen. You have to be sure that another 10 percent of the crops were tithed for truma, and you have to read the package to be sure there's no suspicion of orla in the food."
    "Wait a minute. 'Orla' means 'foreskin.' We have to worry they're putting foreskins in the food?!"
    "Daddy, don't be silly! Orla also means the fruit from a tree in its first three years. It's a sin to eat it."
    No wonder we have so many fast days. They come as a relief.

WE HAD BEEN shopping for half an hour, and so far I was saving a lot of money, for all that we'd bought, which amounted to nothing. The only think I found that complied with all the restrictions was deodorant.
    At that point I noticed that other shoppers -- and this being so soon before the festival, there were a lot of other shoppers -- were not being assisted by know-it-all rabbinical scholars, but rather, they were getting their instructions long distance -- by cellphone...
    "... So you want very soft avocados, medium-soft tomatoes and ultra-soft toilet paper. OK, OK, I'll try to get it right..."
    "... Drive your mother over here, she can save time by standing in line for me at the cashier while I do the shopping. Look, she's not doing anything anyway, and I'll be finished in a couple of hours..."
    "... How much is it there? 4.30 a kilo? No, I'll buy it here, it's 3.90. Now go to the jams, I think it's the next aisle. You found it? The cheap one here is three for 16. It's 5.20 there? Good, buy apricot. Allo, you hear me? APRICOT. Now tell me what's on sale in olive oil. But only virgin olive oil. Allo, you hear me? Only the virgin. VIRGIN! VIRGIN! YOU HEAR?!..."
    My daughter tugged at my sleeve. "Daddy, what's 'virgin'?"
    "It's, I dunno, sort of handmade by handmaidens, in a way."
    "Well, I just hope there's a mashgiach there when they're doing it."
    By reading the fine print on every side of every item, we managed to find some foods we'd be able to eat on Pessah and still consider ourselves Jewish.
    At the tunafish, trouble. I insisted on buying the cheap stuff, but she was rather adamant: she burst into tears. She begged, she pleaded, she threatened that if I bought that brand she'd run away from home. This, it seemed to me, was the utmost in religious zealotry.
    It wasn't. It was animal-rights zealotry. This tin, she sobbed, did not have a little picture of a dolphin on it.
    "Well of course not! We're buying tuna, not dolphin."
    "No, that shows dolphins weren't killed when they fished out the tuna. It has to say 'dolphin-safe.'"
    "Why doesn't anyone care that it's tuna-safe?"
    The reason is, there aren't any kiddie movies about friendly tunafish.

    THERE IS not much to buy if you insist on being religiously, morally, healthily and politically correct. It always looks like such a selection at the supermarket, but there isn't, really, if you shop according to the various codes of ethics.
    We got in line at the "10 items or less" cash (we had 13 items, but never mind). Even here, it didn't get any easier. I mean, at this point, I just want to pay and get out.
    "Membership card?" "No." "You want chocolate-covered wafers at a special price?" "No." "Would you like to buy a disk of Dudu Topaz love songs?" "No." "Want to enter the lottery?" "No, I want to exit the store." "Cash or charge?" "Charge." "How many payments?" "A thousand. Look, can we get on with it? There's a holiday coming up."
    The cashier let me go with a cheery "Thank you, sir, and have a kosher Pessah!"
    "We will," my child assured her, "because I'm going to supervise the cooking. My Daddy's going to need a lot of help."