While bread gets cracker-ified during Passover, chosen bottles of soda get stripped of their high-fructose corn syrup and are sweetened instead with the real deal. No need to hunt for imported Mexican colas or hitch a ride south of the border for the cane sugar cola that tastes so great.
That's right: Passover Coke is here! (Or Passover Pepsi, if you're on that side of the Cola War.)
Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi make a real-sugar version around this time of year, and you can find it by looking for yellow caps on Coke bottles or white caps on Pepsi. But to be sure you really have a sweet, sweet sugariffic cola in your hands, check the cap for a "P" next to whatever kosher symbol appears (see photo).
This is a true story: when I was about five years old, I asked my mother how Moses and his friends had time to stop in the middle of the desert to dip their matzo in chocolate. Turns out I wasn't the only curious kid. This Passover season marks the 20th anniversary of Chuck Siegel's (the Charles of Charles Chocolates) matzo-dipping party. But the whole scene got started with apples—not dipped in honey, but in caramel. Chuck, then owner of Attivo Confections, was vacuum-sealing his candied Granny Smith apples with heavy-duty equipment. "The guy we bought the bags and the machines from was Jewish, and still is Jewish," Siegel said. "And he said, 'my daughter really wants to make some chocolate-covered matzo—can we come over and put some matzo through the enrobing line?'"
Plague-themed Peeps, candy molds, and chocolates: they're perfect for Passover!
The ten Passover Plagues in Exodus didn't involve much sugar or butter. If only Moses delivered G-d's demands in candy form, then those gnats and ticks could have been chocolate, not infectious insects! With Passover only three weeks away, here's a few candy homages to the anniversary of Egyptian calamities. Mmm, who wants a sugar high from boils and murrain?
Those wacky funsters on Japanese TV know how to put some life into my by-now-rote Passover celebration with this delightfully perverse "Halving Matzo" video.
Here at Serious Eats world headquarters there are Jews like me heading for seders tonight and tomorrow night to celebrate the first two nights of Passover. And what, some of you might rightfully ask, are we doing celebrating National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day on the site today instead of dispensing advice on how to cook brisket or even haroset, the apples and honey dish that is supposed to symbolize the mortar Jews used to build the pyramids in Egypt?
But, as my wife makes her haroset with apples and walnuts in the room next to me, I have decided that peanut butter and jelly would also make a terrific haroset. Peanut butter and jelly has the exact same characteristics as apples and honey. It's sticky, sweet, and thick enough to approximate mortar. I know to some of you it might seem like a stretch, but you have to admit it's more than a little plausible.
And to carry the analogy a little further, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on matzo makes as much sense culinarily and historically as a haroset sandwich on matzoh.
This year, apple, honey, and walnut haroset in New York, next year peanut butter and jelly haroset in Jerusalem.
Joan Nathan of the New York Times talks to Ana Benarroch de Bensadón, author of a cookbook of Sephardic dessert recipes. After Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, her family lived for centuries in Tangiers; she moved to Madrid with her husband in the 1960s after political instability in Morocco, and brought with her dishes that had all but been forgotten in Spain over the last 500 years, notable for how they combine their Jewish, Spanish and North African roots while still keeping kosher:
No dish is as Spanish as a creamy flan. But hers is made with oranges, almonds and sugar, with no cream or condensed milk that would keep it from sharing a kosher table with meat dishes. Dishes like these were also cooked by Jews who stayed in Spain after the expulsion and pretended to convert to Christianity.
“To prove that they were like Christians, the Jews made flans, but used orange juice, sugar water and almonds so they could eat the flan with a meat meal,” she said.
The piece includes recipes for her orange-almond flan, chocolate olive oil mousse, and almond-lemon macaroons; all the recipes involve eggs, so they're not vegan, but the lack of milk and cream makes them good options for the lactose intolerant. I eat everything and don't need to keep kosher, but I might just try these making some of these anyway, they just sound so delicious.
Carole Kotkin of the Miami Herald has nine great tips to cooking matzo balls, for those of you making Passover meals for Monday. Tip No. 8: "To ensure tender matzo balls, do not uncover the pot, even to peek, for at least the first 20 minutes."
"Each year, Coca-Cola makes Coke with sugar for observant US Jews to drink during Passover. And the rest of us get to go along for the ride. This is a boon for those who don't like Coke with high fructose corn syrup and who have to seek out the superior sugared Coke in small Mexican restaurants and grocery stores." BuzzFeed's post on Sweet Sweet Passover Coke has the ten best links to what is, as a non-Jew, my favorite Passover treat!
But, as my wife makes her haroset with apples and walnuts in the room next to me, I have decided that peanut butter and jelly would also make a terrific haroset. Peanut butter and jelly has the exact same characteristics as apples and honey. It's sticky, sweet, and thick enough to approximate mortar. I know to some of you it might seem like a stretch, but you have to admit it's more than a little plausible. 
