Q: On a packet of Passover matzos, it reads: “Under the strict supervision of the Chief Rabbinate of Jerusalem.” What does the term “strict supervision” mean? Would there be a less strict version of supervision? A.G., Auburn South, VIC
A: For people who don’t know, it’s Passover next week: a delightful, eight-day Jewish holiday where you don’t get gifts, you can’t eat flour, and you sit around a table for two nights singing a song about a goat that gets eaten by a cat.
As holidays go, it’s pretty spectacular. And you eat lots of matzos: unleavened flatbreads that are a bit like Sao crackers if Sao crackers tasted of tile grout.
Matzos are very plain and very dry: you need a litre of water to wash them down and a litre of prune juice to get them out. But they’re a sacred Passover foodstuff, made under strict rabbinical supervision to ensure they’re not contaminated by any leavening agents, or that a pork chop doesn’t fall into the mixing bowl.
Read the article by Danny Katz in WA Today.