![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My mouth hurts. A shard of matzah stabbed into the roof of it. Ow. Damn matzah.
Every year I think how nice soft matzah would be. Soft matzah is proper authentic unleavened bread; really matzah ought to be just pita bread, only generations of paranoia have turned it into something more resembling cardboard.* This too is part of the charm of the season - it's such fun to spend a week cleaning your house and then chow down on food that turns into a zillion crumbs as soon as look at it - but never before have I sustained actual physical injury from matzah, and the charm stops there.
So, by next year I am going to learn how to make soft matzah. I tried making pita once before, and it turned out like cardboard, so I've got some work to do there. First stop is going to be learning all those laws and things, and then working out how to make decent bread within those limits. Finding appropriate flour is also going to be a challenge (although I'm in New York City so it can't be that hard). I always thought plain old flour was in principle okay (not, you understand, that I have ever ever had plain old flour in my possession on Pesach; there is a difference between vaguely thinking something and actually doing it, and the difference is called checking up), but apparently commercial wheat gets soaked in water before grinding, which technically counts as leavening, so that's ordinary flour right out.
So: technique, laws, supplies, in the name of not going around with a perforated mouth.
* Since it's fairly easy to screw up and let it get leavened, and since that's really a massive huge no-no, the paranoia is to some extent justified.
Every year I think how nice soft matzah would be. Soft matzah is proper authentic unleavened bread; really matzah ought to be just pita bread, only generations of paranoia have turned it into something more resembling cardboard.* This too is part of the charm of the season - it's such fun to spend a week cleaning your house and then chow down on food that turns into a zillion crumbs as soon as look at it - but never before have I sustained actual physical injury from matzah, and the charm stops there.
So, by next year I am going to learn how to make soft matzah. I tried making pita once before, and it turned out like cardboard, so I've got some work to do there. First stop is going to be learning all those laws and things, and then working out how to make decent bread within those limits. Finding appropriate flour is also going to be a challenge (although I'm in New York City so it can't be that hard). I always thought plain old flour was in principle okay (not, you understand, that I have ever ever had plain old flour in my possession on Pesach; there is a difference between vaguely thinking something and actually doing it, and the difference is called checking up), but apparently commercial wheat gets soaked in water before grinding, which technically counts as leavening, so that's ordinary flour right out.
So: technique, laws, supplies, in the name of not going around with a perforated mouth.
* Since it's fairly easy to screw up and let it get leavened, and since that's really a massive huge no-no, the paranoia is to some extent justified.