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Another Pesach, another bag of pasta, as they say. The thing I notice about Pesach these days is not so much the lack of chametz per se - pasta, biccits and so on - but the lack of mezonot.
Mezonot and chametz have a good deal in common; chametz, as we remember, includes more or less all wheat and grain products except for Official Matzah, and mezonot includes more or less all wheat and grain products except for bread. Thus, during the rest of the year, mezonot is the most frequent food blessing I say. Mezonot doesn't require ritual handwashing, and it doesn't require the long grace-after-meals, so meals based on pasta, or snacks based on cookies, don't need a lot of ritual. Pesach, on the other hand...chocolate matzah is the cookie substitute, and requires washing. Matzah brie (I don't like it very much, but everyone else does), requires washing.* Kosher-for-Pesach breakfast cereal is disgusting; better just to have matzah - washing again. Matzah pizza - washing. Matzah's a quicker source of carbohydrate than potatoes - more washing.
So during Pesach I say grace about four times as often as I would during an ordinary week. I guess it bolsters matzah's claim to being real food; I don't tend to think of crackers as actually being proper food, but if you have to wash over it every single time, you're forced to take a bit more notice of it.
* halakhic purists: at least when there's more matzah in it than egg
Mezonot and chametz have a good deal in common; chametz, as we remember, includes more or less all wheat and grain products except for Official Matzah, and mezonot includes more or less all wheat and grain products except for bread. Thus, during the rest of the year, mezonot is the most frequent food blessing I say. Mezonot doesn't require ritual handwashing, and it doesn't require the long grace-after-meals, so meals based on pasta, or snacks based on cookies, don't need a lot of ritual. Pesach, on the other hand...chocolate matzah is the cookie substitute, and requires washing. Matzah brie (I don't like it very much, but everyone else does), requires washing.* Kosher-for-Pesach breakfast cereal is disgusting; better just to have matzah - washing again. Matzah pizza - washing. Matzah's a quicker source of carbohydrate than potatoes - more washing.
So during Pesach I say grace about four times as often as I would during an ordinary week. I guess it bolsters matzah's claim to being real food; I don't tend to think of crackers as actually being proper food, but if you have to wash over it every single time, you're forced to take a bit more notice of it.
* halakhic purists: at least when there's more matzah in it than egg