Share your pesach chumrot & minhagim

amother

Aquamarine

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 12:58 am

We hardly use any store bought stuff. We don’t make our own pot starch and wine but we squeeze oranges and lemons and only eat things that can be peeled.
only carp fish-because it can be bought live
We don’t use oil only shmaltz but we do use butter!
How many here still use shmaltz???

etky

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 1:33 am

flowerpower wrote:

Half the Israelis eat kitnios?

Actually, since it's a good bet that more Sephardim keep to the traditional way of eating on Pessach than Ashkenazim - which include many completely secular veteran Israeli and secular Russian olim - then probably well over half the Jews in this country who observe the Pesach dietary laws to any degree eat kitniyot.
For those who don't eat kitniyot and who don't live in haredi areas where supermarkets carry mostly badatz/mehadrin items, it's a real pain to have to check food labels to determine if the item is ok or not. Just this morning I pointed out to DH that the Tara milk (rabbanut kashrut) that I bought yesterday says כשר לפסח לאוכלי קטניות (probably because of the vitamin A&D supplement which is oil based).

crust

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 2:32 am

naturalmom5 wrote:

My husband used to have tons of chumros like homemade wine and no igikes (pickes) and no garlic and tons of other things.

Now we go to a hotel. We have no energy left, I put my foot down when he wanted to fill up a barrel of water before Pesach. I told him hes going in the barrel

That would make him kosher for pesach.
You made me lol.

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 4:11 am

flowerpower wrote:

Half the Israelis eat kitnios?

I don't know about half but there are a lot more food items for those who eat kitniyot. A lot more.
By the way, not all sfaradim have different minhagim about kitniyot. Yemenites usually eat rice, Moroccans don't. They will use sesamy and peanuts but not chumus (according to my experience and knowledge)

imasinger

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 5:17 am

There haven't been many posts about cleaning chumrot, though I don't know that we can call it that, since all extra measures are permitted.

What do you all clean?

Even though we have a Pesach stovetop, and the regular one gets put away, DH likes the regular one cleaned -- not just normally, but as thoroughly as if we were going to kasher it, toothpicks and all.

After a number of years, I put my foot down about re-washing every stitch of cloth in the kitchen (tablecloths, challah covers, bibs/aprons) , because everything gets washed regularly after use and put away clean.

We do move and clean under the refrigerator, and the covered heaters. Cover tables with a layer of plastic and then 2 tablecloths.

But I don't shake out our thousands of books. Not enough hours in the day. Ditto, board games; I've never come across a crumb big enough to see. I just have a rule, the only books allowed to touch the tables are haggadas and Pesach bentchers. Everything else has to be held in a lap, and put back on a non food shelf when not being held. And games must not be set up on the tables either.

Other interesting question -- what rules do you have about where afikomen can be hidden? Are bedrooms off limits? Any other restrictions? (One year, my father, a"h, taped a pocket before Pesach outside the house, the afikomen could only be reached by opening the window and feeling around the shingles!)

amother

Slategray

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 5:40 am

I really admire people who take on themselves chumrot and special minhagim, more strength to you!
I'm not on that level, be it on Pesach or throughout the year. But there's always room for growth.

On the other hand, in some ways, threads like this always make me appreciate dh so much more Very Happy

He eats kitniot and gebrokts. It does make life easier.

I'm a gioret so I don't have any family minhagim (as a joke, I sometimes say that my family minhag is to eat chametz on Pesach - they're non-Jews, ha, ha.)

Dh has got a standard joke for Pesach as well: he'll announce with a sad, serious donation-collector voice that "as every year, also this year hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel will go hungry at Pesach - [dramatic pause] - they are called Ashkenazim."

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 5:59 am

amother wrote:

And usually the counter reply I've heard is that ashkenazim have 3 days slichot before Rosh Hashana and sfaradim an entire month Confused

amother

Oak

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:17 am

amother wrote:

No chumras here except standard no kitniyot growing up. However, this year will be one less chumra! DH and I made aliyah, and with the blessings of all parties involved (parents and Rabbis) we will be doing hatarat nedarim and joining the kitniyot eaters. Chummus on Peach? Yes please!

Cute story: my mother has this wooden spatula she calls a "misher". Never knew why she called it that, I always thought she made up a cutesy name. Then I discover Imamother and someone started a thread about mishing. Lightbulb moment! I was so excited to learn there was a reason for the name.

We are the same! We started eating kitniyot after we made Aliyah as well.
Our chumra on pesach is to make it as easy and enjoyable as possible for everyone.

Chayalle

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:50 am

I grew up not eating gebroks and not mishing - we didn't eat by others except Acharon Shel Pesach. We were very makpid with the gebrokts - we ate matza over a napkin so no crumbs would get around.

DH doesn't eat gebrokts either, but his definition is vastly different than what I grew up with. Basically, you can eat by people who cook gebrokts - everything but the matza ball....My father told me upon my marriage to do everything DH does. Also, my parents came to me for Pesach for years, and they relaxed a bit about the napkins and the crumbs (they did it, but we did not.)

Chayalle

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:54 am

Boca00 wrote:

We have to check rice three times before eating it on Pesach.

But... We eat kitnios, so it's all worth it. Especially as I take the other jobs and let my experienced husband and in laws check the rice. Wink

DD's best friend is Sephardi. Every year as we start our Pesach cooking, I hear about how her friend is sitting and checking the rice....

Chayalle

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:58 am

pause wrote:

You forgot the liver and the brattel and potato chremslach. In vus bizti verd without borscht???

My grandmother (she should live to 120!) told me that the first Pesach after liberation, she got hold of 100 kilos of potatoes, which she hand-grated and fried all Pesach to feed five starving men (her brother, two cousins, and two uncles).

I think of this every year when I put my potatoes thru my processor (my grandmother claims that that ruins the taste) and fry them....

Oh and about the borscht...wouldn't touch the stuff if you paid me. She told me that she would put beets in water (I think) in a back room for like two weeks to ferment it, and then use the liquid and add all sorts of stuff...potatoes, eggs, and whatnot. Not my style.

lech lecha08

Thu, Mar 08 2018, 12:27 pm

amother wrote:

3rd when the wine is spilled for Makot we don't look, and someone escorts DH with the spilled wine to flush down the toilet.
My mom use to say if you look you'll get lice, LOL.

This is so interesting. A non-religious Russian lady I worked with told me the wine they spilled out all went onto one plate and then they would break the plate because you don't want the plagues in your house. I had never heard that idea before. Obviously, you can't intentionally break a plate on chag but it's a similar idea.

amother

Natural

Sat, Mar 10 2018, 11:44 pm

lech lecha08 wrote:

And my Polish grandmother told me they used to give that wine to the non-Jewish staff LOL

(she came from a wealthy family)

imasoftov

Sun, Mar 11 2018, 9:59 am

salt wrote:

Sure, more than 50% Israeli's are sefardi I would imagine.

I've seen 52%. While there number of Ashkenazim who otherwise keep Pesach but have abandoned the prohibition against kitniot probably is not large enough to influence the national average, Ashkenazim who either don't keep Pesach at all or are not all that strict about it might also raise the kitniot-eating percentage by a noticeable amount.

There's a lot of food here in Israel marked kosher lepesach for those who eat kitniot. Fortunately we got a psak to ignore that when it comes to trace amounts, so a container of something in the dairy section or a package of coldcuts stamped "kitniot" or a chocolate bar marked "liftit" (Hebrew for lecithin), often made from soybeans, we'll eat. About the only things in the supermarket we won't buy are things where kitniot are the major ingredients, e.g. packages of raw kitniot, chumus and techina, the gluten free cornflakes (which aren't all that good anyway), rice pasta or cakes, and those cookies made with wine and kosher lepesach flour (not kitniot, but also something Sephardim are allowed to eat, although we might buy they to use before Pesach starts in clean areas of the house). But people with a more stringent definition of kitniot may have a harder time shopping.