Eeeeew! We gave up on Manischewitz years ago, even when my grandparents are visiting. There’s no rule that says you need to drink that stuff; it tastes like cough syrup. There are some much more decent Kosher wines out now, and even Kosher for Passover wines.
I always loved charoset, though, especially leftover for breakfast the following morning. I’m always the one who makes it, and we make far too much of it. That way I get to bring home the leftovers. 
There kinda is a rule: I buy the wine and I < sob > I kinda like the (non-grape) stuff. The cherry or blackberry Manischewitz is…well…not good, so much as “tasty”. You can also pour it over ice cream. 
Charoset rocks. I usually make it for my family too. I’ve tried varients such as Moroccan (less apples, but add dates, raisins and a little grated ginger) and Sephardic (it’s not supposed to have apple, but dammit, it isn’t Charoset without some apple so I added a little—but mostly raisins, dried apricots, currants and dates, along with the wanuts and wine ground to a near paste–so it’s nearly smooth rather than the traditional chunky style) and um…Eithopian (?) (which used bunches of spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne pepper (a tiny bit) along with the dried fruits, nuts, apples and wine) the last few years and except for my brother who’s a serious traditionalist ("It’s not the way mom made it. :: pout :: ) it’s been a big hit. I’m gonna try a “Hawaiian” varient that adds pineapple and candied ginger.
Ever try the stuff the next day, stirred into oatmeal? Or cooked a bit and served with a couple of crepes? Yum.
Fenris, a fellow Charoset freak!
Well, we survived without war being declared between Israel and Norway. They didn’t Lutheran it up much at all. Jay, who led it, had a gas. Turns out he’s son of a rabbi so it was nice to get back into the family biz for an evening. The haggadah was assembled from several and abridged to three typewritten pages but some of the abridgement was “Jay says a prayer in Hebrew” so we got the gist. I must be getting old because the wine was rather good, in a cloying way; I didn’t get the brand but it was NOT Morgan Davis. We ran low on wine even though we each started out with only half a glass and were expected to take just sips at the appointed times–this is NOT a bunch of drinkers–so I gave Eliayhu the leftover glass of kid’s grape juice, telling everybody that he was driving, so I guess I was the biggest blasphemer there. The horseradish was fresher than I expect this late in the season and had a kick like a mule so Mr I Can Handle Anything’s eyes were watering. I have several Charoset converts on my hands now so I’ll need some recipes, Fenris and Eva. And the afikhomen game was not challenging–the “Papa” at each table wrapped the matzoh with the table’s place card and we put them all in the same basket–but since the youngest at some of the tables were in their late sisties you didn’t want to make it TOO challenging.
Everybody had a nice time and it was good for people to learn some more about our neighbors. Next fall we have to get ourselves invited to the end of Ramaddan party down at the mosque since we missed crashing (“It’s not ‘crashing’ if everybody is invited.”) the St Joseph’s Table at the Italian Catholic church. Ecumenism can be fattening!
You bad, bad boy! Crepes are not Kosher for Passover! Unless you make them with matzo meal, in which case, eeeeew!
Just a thought from somebody without a dog in this fight but there’s no law that says you can only eat charoset during Passover, right?
Make Charoset - chop chop chop!
Apples, nuts and cinnamon,
Add some wine, it’s lot’s of fun!
Make Charoset - chop chop chop!
My Dad makes it every Erev Pessach, doing the whole thing by hand - dicing the apples, crushing the walnuts with a hammer and a folded napkin, mixing the whole thing together in a wooden bowl. It’s the probably most complicated food he knows how to make. My Sephardic wife, God bless her, has been trying to convince him to add dates, but so far no luck.
Important tip - add the wine at the last moment, just before you sit down to eat. It’ll help keep it fresh.
Not that I know of, anyway.
As for recipes: well, mine isn’t really a recipe. It involves diced apples (I like tart ones, like Granny Smith), a dash of fresh lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, and wine (dry red; I don’t care what Fenris says).
There are lots of international variations in The Book of Jewish Food. Personally, I think everyone who cares at all about food should have that book.
So, what is “kosher” wine? It’s not milk or flesh, so isn’t it pareve? Can’t you guys have a pleasant Australian Shiraz or Merlot for your Seder instead of Mogen David or Manischevitz?
I couldn’t begin to tell you what makes a wine Kosher, but as far as I know it ain’t cough syrup content. I don’t know of any reason why a nice Australian Shiraz couldn’t be Kosher as long as it conformed to the rules and had been certified as such by an authorized certifying body. There’s plenty of “normal” Kosher wine out there now.
I try will ask my Orthodox co-worker when she comes in. She is the wife of an Orthodox rabbi whose son is going through some sort of Kosher certification apprenticeship right now, so she ought to be able to give me the whole scoop.
(P.S. My family usually just drinks whatever. We figured it was kind of silly to drink cough syrup if none of us keeps a Kosher kitchen anyway. Although I do think we would draw the line at, say, bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin au gratin.)
My favorite Jewish joke (okay, the only one I know that isn’t totally offensive or stolen from a Borscht Belt comic) as told by a Reformed friend (very reformed–you could call him a “fallen Jew” who would only make an effort at Passover):
The Great Jewish Conundrum: Free bacon
(ducking and running before Lynn notices I told a joke in the Pit)
Wait…why?
Eggs (NON-beaten, so you don’t have the dreaded meringue effect which would count as leavening*), flour, milk, margerine (in place of the much superior butter), a pinch of salt and two pinches of sugar. Should be perfectly fine and they come out flatter than matzoh: right? The only thing I have to do is skip the “let it sit for an hour” step since you have 15 (18? 20?) minutes from the moment that the flour hits the liquid to prevent any ambient yeast from doing it’s thing.
I mean, pancakes would be a no-no since they’re leavened with baking powder (or is it soda?) but if it’s non-leavened, it’s groovy…isn’t it? 
I know that there’s that rule about “the appearance of impropriety” rule that bans legumes and such (which I’d never heard of until I got to the SDMB), but either way, since I live alone, no-one’s gonna come a-knockin’ on my door to tell me that I’ve given them the impression that I’m eating non Kosher for Passover foods.
Fenris
*To me. Making a cake with whipped egg whites seems like cheating–you’re still adding air. I don’t care if the air is coming from yeast, baking soda/powder or really whipped up eggs, any “poofing” of the ingredients seems like cheating to me.
Isn’t margerine corn oil? Isn’t corn one of the grains we are forbidden to eat during Passover?
Re Leavening- The folks at Manishewitz, Kedem, and the rest leaven their egg kichel (imagine a light, airy oyster cracker topped with brown sugar) with baking soda and such, who am I to argue?
BTW- Anybody know of a company that makes almond butter? I am very fond of peanut butter. But legumes are forbidden during Passover.
Eva Luna I’ve been meaning to ask you this. Are you the same Eva Luna who is mentioned during the ending credits of the game Full Throttle?
Here’s one answer:
“The prohibition against “leavened foods,” as explained by the story of Exodus, is misleading. According to Rabbi Singer of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in New York, the world’s largest kosher certifying agency, the initial prohibition against food for Passover applied to five basic “Biblical” grains – wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and oat – that could leaven, but not to the leavening agent itself. European (Askenazi) Jews later added to this list of staples rice, corn, millet, buckwheat, and legumes (peas and beans), because each of these staple foods were ground into use as some version of flour. Rabbi Tzvi Rosen, editor of Kashrus Kurrents, explains more precisely that the ban on kitniyos (legumes) is to prevent any possible public confusion between their flour and that which comes from grains. See, flour is the medium on which yeast acts, so it is actually the idea of flour, broadly conceived, that is anathema to Jews. Taken to the logical extreme, all derivatives of these prohibited ingredients should be banned by modern Jews. Corn syrup, found in soft drinks and candy, is one example of a particularly ubiquitous by-product. Any alcohol made from grain is also banned. It seems, then, that Jews do not avoid leavening agents, as the story of Exodus would suggest at first glance, nor do they ban grains just for grains’ sake. Rather, they are concerned about grains’ potential for leavening.”
Do you have a headache yet? No? Well, let me see if my hardcore Orthodox co-worker has gone home to finish cleaning the chametz out of her house yet…
What’s this with legumes? I never heard that one before and I make a sideline of tracking other people’s culturally-based dietary restrictions. That, and the only way I can choke down Passover matzoh is with peanut butter. Makes me glad I’m Christian!
When the kid asked why we were eating while reclining I turned to Wife and whispered, “Reclining? Sounds a little…” and in unison we raised our eyebrows and said, “Greek.” Fun for people stuck in the second century BCE.
(looking at my watch) It’s been a couple days. Don’t Chaim and Zev ever take a look at what’s being discussed in the Pit? Or are they too good for us? 
Thanks, Eva. And yes, it did give me a headache.
(making a note to myself to pick up some Kosher Coke when I drive through Skokie Sunday)
Doc: Almond butter is available in any supermarket near the peanut butter. Personally though, I prefer Cashew butter. As for the levaning, I still think it seems like cheating. I bow to their superior knowledge, but for me, I’d rather not. The point of the prohibition against unleavened bread isn’t (to me only, of course) to see how many ways one can get around the “no leavening” rule, it’s to avoid eating puffy light breads in rememberance of our ancestors and the the dried unleavened bread they took with them on their fight from Egypt. I suspect most other Jews would disagree (my folks do! 
)
Hm. But your site also says
And this cite, by Rabbi Simmons who teachs us:
Granted, he also says that you’re not supposed to even own chometz on Passover which would make the situation problematic, but to me, throwing away a mostly-full 10 pound bag of flour, a bunch of frozen corn, etc (since you can’t give or sell opened food products) is a bigger no-no than just keeping them. I can’t accept that I’m supposed to waste perfectly good food*.
I really thought the rule was “Flour is fine (remember, matzoh is also made with flour) but you have to be extra special careful to use it as soon as it mixes with liquid.”
(I’m enjoying this discussion to no end, btw )
Drop: The “legumes” thing comes from one branch of Judiasm (the Ashkenazi Jews). Another major branch (The Sephardic Jews) don’t have the Legumes rule. Like I said, I’d never heard of the Legumes Rule (actually “kitniyot” or “Stuff that looks like the five disallowed grains, but isn’t”. Rice for example) until my cousin married an Ashkenazi Jew who was pretty shocked at our first joint Passover when he realized that we were having rice with Passover which he put in the same category as having, say, cheese covered pork wrapped in puff-pastery. 
Fenris
*< mom moment >…especially when there’s so many starving children in the world who would be thrilled to have those lima beans < / mom moment >
Random tying up of loose ends, as I sit here chomping on a probably quite non-kosher Cadbury crème Easter egg:
The Jewish conundrum I always heard was “when your only son tells you he’s gay, but he’s dating a nice Jewish doctor.”
My screen name is from the Isabel Allende novel of the same name…good stuff! (Never heard of the game you mention.)
Almond butter: can’t think of any brands off the top of my head, but try a local natural foods store. I buy mine at Trader Joe’s. Good stuff.
Legumes: there was an article years ago in the Chicago Tribune on the cultural basis of the Ashkenazi legume prohibition. One theory was that legumes were frequently transported in the same vessels as prohibited grains, so they probably would have come into contact with items that had touched grain at some point during shipping.
Hey dropzone and *Fenris: if you really want a headache, I will try to summarize what my co-worker just told me. Basically, the reason why some wine is not Kosher for Passover (and by the way, she says she’s never tasted Manischewitz or other nasty cough-syrup stuff) is that the entire production process needs to be supervised, such that no items which touch the wine have touched anything which has touched grain. It’s the entire process of production and distribution that matters.
And if you think that’s hardcore, we got to talking about which Passover traditions are religiously based and which are purely cultural, and I mentioned that my family would never have a Seder without matzo-ball soup (except the year Mom spaced out and left it out overnight, and we feared food poisoning and threw it away, but I digress). She says she has quite a few relatives who won’t even use matzo meal, because of the possibility that some less-than-fully-cooked bit would remain in contact with the chicken soup for more than 18 minutes and begin to ferment. In fact, some people won’t eat matzo on a plate with other foods, lest the crumbs mix with the brisket gravy or something and begin to ferment. She says her own father never let them spread an entire piece of matzo with butter and eat it; rather, they had to spread each bite one at a time, so the butter didn’t remain in contact with the matzo for more than a few seconds.
Did I mention I’m glad my family is Reform?
(On preview: *Fenris, I totally agree with you about wasting food. One way around this: my co-worker has been bringing in her various opened chometz foods to work, so the non-Jews can eat them.)
If you seal the flour or corn, you can then sell it, can’t you?
Mine too–and we have matzoh-ball soup at Passover too!
I would personally pay $10.00 to see one or two of my co-workers polish off about 8 pounds of flour in one sitting!
Captain Amazing: I doubt, even with tools like eBay, that I can sell an opened 10-pound sack of flour or a half-empty bag of frozen corn kernels.
You put it in a cupboard and seal the cupboard, then you sell it to a Gentile friend for a nominal fee, who then will sell it back to you after Passover is over. Your rabbi can probably act as your agent, or Chabad can do it for you, if you use this electronic form.
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach.asp?aid=111191