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For some reason, I thought it would be hard to find Passover foods in Paris, but the local Monoprix, your basic department store slash supermarket had a wide variety of matzot to choose from, as well as little paper-wrapped cylinders of charoset, an adaptable mixture of things like apples, nuts, wine, honey, and dates (one recipe here). The blue printing on the package read: Mémé Hélene vous souhaite Pessah cachère (Granny Helene wishes you a kosher Passover), with a picture of the somewhat dour-looking woman below, presumably Granny Helene of blessed memory.


Probably because I'm a Jewish heathen (which, I suppose, is likely an oxymoron, but you get my drift), I was surprised to find that the matzot were not the square ones I was used to, but instead were round and scalloped, pierced with a pretty pattern of holes, like a cut paper snowflake. After consulting the internets, I learned that, in fact, it was the square matzot I'd grown up with that were the anomaly. Exodus 12:39 says:

And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual.

Apparently in Hebrew, the word that means cakes, could also be interpreted to mean circular, so the passage was read to mandate unleavened cakes that were also round. A simple, logical explanation. And for a moment, I felt a little like the wise son in the story, who wants to learn everything about Passover that he possibly can.

(If you're a bit rusty on the tale of the wise son and his three brothers, take a look at this musical explanation , sung (and I am not making this up) to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine).


edited to add: I was thinking that I was going to have to give up macarons for Passover. Christine, however, prompted me to look up the ingredients and it looks like the macaronfest can continue unabated!!!! Christine, you know I loved you before. But now, I love you even more than ever.