# Kosher for Passover?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 10, 2000, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119 "2000-05-10T14:28:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/1 "2000-05-10T14:28:24Z")
I know this is too late for the holiday, but it nags at me…
Go down to the store and buy, examine, shoplift, whatever, a box of matzoh ball mix. Matzoh is supposed to be unleavened bread, right? Well, check the instructions: Let stand for twenty minutes. LET STAND FOR TWENTY MINUTES. After that, it ain’t freakin’ matzoh anymore, is it? It’s leavened dough, right? How does the stuff continue to be matzoh?
Please explain this.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/2 "2000-05-10T14:44:23Z")
It’s matzoh because it’s made from matzoh. Whether it’s kosher for Passover after it stands is a separate issue.
Matzoh doesn’t have to be kosher for Passover.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/3 "2000-05-10T14:50:12Z")
It’s matzoh because it’s made from matzoh. Whether it’s kosher for Passover after it stands is a separate issue.
Matzoh doesn’t have to be kosher for Passover. You can find certain varieties that are not. I remember one passover when someone tried to explain to the gentile stock clerk at Grand Union that the matzoh they were selling wasn’t kosher for Passover.
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### Author:  [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/4 "2000-05-10T14:50:41Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*
> I know this is too late for the holiday, but it nags at me…
>
> Go down to the store and buy, examine, shoplift, whatever, a box of matzoh ball mix. Matzoh is supposed to be unleavened bread, right? Well, check the instructions: Let stand for twenty minutes. LET STAND FOR TWENTY MINUTES. After that, it ain’t freakin’ matzoh anymore, is it? It’s leavened dough, right? How does the stuff continue to be matzoh?
>
> Please explain this.
> \*\*
No. Once the matzoh has been baked, it can no longer become leavened. Hence, you can put matzoh in your soup on Passover without a problem.
As an aside to the above: there are those who refrain from doing so, because they are afraid there may be some \* unbaked \* dough that will leaven when brought in contact with water.
Zev Steinhardt
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### Author:  [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/5 "2000-05-10T15:07:06Z")
We’ll assume that the matzoh mix is kosher for Passover (if it is purported to be, and is not, there’s a problem with the _hashgakhah_, but that’s another question).
The _kosher l’Pesah_ matzoh mix does not contain raw flour (which _can_ become leavened), but rather previously baked unleavened bread which is finely ground (“matzoh meal”). This previously baked meal cannot become _hametz_.
Note that the rules are different depending on when a product is purchased (a product containing _any hametz_ cannot be purchased during Passover; whereas in a product that is purchased _before_ Passover, _hametz_ is subject to the ordinary rules of nullification).
As _RealityChuck_ points out, calling a product “matzoh” is not an assertion that contains no _hametz_, or, in fact, that it is kosher at all.
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### Author:  [@Yarster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yarster)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/6 "2000-05-10T15:11:25Z")
I always understood it to be that the matzah was unleavened in general because no yeast was involved and that the standing for 20 minutes part to which you refer doesn’t count. The expansion of the matzo balls by their uptake of broth doesn’t count as ‘rising’ per se as you see with yeast.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2000, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kosher-for-passover/19119/7 "2000-05-10T16:28:14Z")
Yarster:
18 minutes is the amount of time it will take for a flour and water mixture (no yeast) to rise to the point of being considered “leavened.”
Yeast makes dough rise faster, but is not necessary to make it rise at all.
As the others said, once the stuff is cooked, it can’t become leavened (without the addition of something that can become leavened into the mix). Hence, Matzo meal is Kosher for Passover.