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April 25, 2005
What says the Gentile Child? Or: Attack of the Killer Seder
As I was coming back to my apartment after the Great Matzo Ball Debacle at Cousin Janet’s, I ran into one of my neighbors. Nancy had an awful, splitting headache to which I lightly remarked that so did 1/3 of Manhattan, and indigestion, to boot.
Suddenly, she stopped me and said, “then I can ask you this about that . . . meal.” I had assumed up until this point that Nancy was also Jewish, which was evidently incorrect. “Do people always stick their fingers in their wine glass and throw wine on their plate?” She asked this the same way I might ask if one really ate dog brains with a grapefruit spoon. I assured her that, yes, it was traditional and out spilled the litany of horror.
Evidently Nancy had never been to an actual seder before. They ate parsley (I mean, who uses it as anything other than a garnish?), but first they did something to it, dipped it in something or other. Then there was this awful looking stuff they put on a cracker.
“But that’s charoses, Nancy. It’s just apples and walnuts; it tastes good.”
“But they ate it with this purple stuff and I thought that was disgusting. And there was no bread. And then they read for hours from this book, and they wanted me to read as well! I said I did not have my reading glasses.”
I didn’t laugh once, much as I wanted to. As my stepmother (who, bless her heart, has participated with good will in many a Seder even though she’s Catholic and also doesn’t like the traditional food) says, “Nothing is obvious to the uninformed.” And in this case, the uninitiated. It would have been more charitable if someone had given her a quick rundown on what would happen before inviting her. Poor woman, she must have felt like Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. All you want is a plain bowl of soup and they’re serving you monkey, or worse, matzo balls.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at April 25, 2005 2:23 AM
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