Continuing the discussion from What was the point of ordering the Israelites to not leaven their bread as they prepared to depart Egypt?:
The good stuff sells out before passover around here. (The Israeli brands, for whatever reason, taste a lot better than the American brands. They taste like toasted wheat flour, instead of tasting like… Unsalted saltines, i guess. Really bland and flat and … more like raw flour, almost.)
My favorite is Aviv. Yehuda is okay if i can’t get Aviv, although it’s more prone to burnt notes. Both are miles better than Streits and Manischewitz and whatever else tends to be in that aisle.
This is what we’ve bought the last couple of years for the Seder:
Daily matzo during Passover is usually one of the American brands, I prefer egg matzo over plain,
I’ve never liked egg matzo. I don’t like any of the matzo-meal based cakes, either. I do love matzo ball soup, which is made largely of matzo meal and egg.
The percentage of the local population that are practicing Jews is small for the population size (no wonder, since Colorado Springs is awash in Churches on every corner and not a few Megas) - so we generally just see the National Brands here.
I don’t mind it - I like a “traditional” Passover Matzo with a schmeer of salted butter and that’s it. I’m secular, so almost all years I don’t participate in a Seder and I’m having it for my personal eating enjoyment and nostalgia. But that configuration is a lot of carbs and fat, so not very often. Sadness.
Matzo ball soup though… that’s 4-5 times a year, and while I don’t make it from a box, I do make it like a salt lick, because, dammit, that’s the way we had it growing up. But it’s made from a homemade simmered broth because that’s how my grandmother (and my father after she passed) made it.
Many memories of sneaking to the long-simmering covered pot on the stove and sneaking out a cup of heavenly broth, into a small mug, and adding a touch of water to make up for it. The Jewish food-porn equivalent of sneaking your parents booze and topping the bottle off with tap water I suppose…