Monday, April 21, 2008

A Mexican Passover...

...is a very good thing. At least the way it is done in my family, with lots of songs, silly jokes ("all those who want to ask the Four Questions, don't all raise your hands at the same time"), a big family and wonderful food such as Gefilte Fish with Veracruzana sauce and yes, a Mole Matzoh Pudding that is freaking brilliant. Tia "Wera" rules.

Gefilte Fish a la Veracruzana. My grandmother's genius invention.

Mole Matzoh Pudding. You better believe it. Yummy.

I took video of the beautiful seder at the home of my uncle Abraham who leads the seder the way my grandpa used to do it, with beautiful, melodic davening and singing the interminable songs until they actually end, with an operatic finale courtesy of my adored aunt Dora. My uncle does some needed shortcuts and the meal is served in the middle, lest hungry Jews rebel.
My darling nephews (2 and 7) had a little too much Manischewitz and they were a little tipsy but extremely happy and extremely freaked out by the invisible appearance of Elijah the Prophet who came and visibly drank the wine and made a mess of the tablecloth and then went on his invisible way to attend all the other seders. As one of my cousins pointed out, he was already plastered when he got to us and still had several to go.
I used to think that for a holiday that symbolizes freedom, Passover was just a long list of restrictions (no bread or yeast for 8 days, no tortillas, etc). But listening to the songs this time (one of them in Arameic), I just thought that Jews have a very long memory. And if to this day we're still remembering our expulsion from ancient Egypt, we're not about to forget all the other crap we've had to endure through the centuries, despite of which, we're still here. A long memory and an even longer life span.
Happy Passover, everybody.

1 comment:

  1. hey there. i'm a JAP also, or JAMP (jewish am mexican princess), and my family also does the gefilte a la veracruzana.
    i always thought it had been MY grandmothers recipe! But, it seems like jews in mexico city have been doing it for 15 or 20 years now.

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