quinoa for pesach?

Barbara

Mon, Mar 02 2009, 5:53 pm

Mrs Bissli wrote:

I've seen it for the first time last year, but I'm hearing more and more about using quinoa for pesach.
Is quinoa considered kitniyot? Is it widely accepted? What do you do with it? WOULD YOU EAT IT?
I'm afraid my guests may not touch it, unless it is widely accepted it's kasher lepesach. (I'll have both Ashkenazim and Sephardim, no kitniyot in our house).

AIUI, quinoa is actually a fruit, not a grain or kitniyot. That said, if it loks like a duck and acts like a duck and quacks like a duck ... people will think its a duck. Its definitely controversial. Check with your rabbi.

freidasima

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 8:35 am

Well here's the thing Seraph. When prepared correctly, almost everything in the world can be dried and turned into flour. Including things that are not potato and are definitely not kitniyot.
Sweet potatoes. tomatoes. buckwheat (kasha), even celery!

Quinoa was not known at the time of the gezera of kitniyot. Therefore halachawise it is not kitniyot because kitniyot was on very specific things that were known at the time. Not an amorphous "anything that can be made into looking like flour". Rav Blumenkrantz is not the only acceptable opinion in this matter and if that is his reasoning, it reminds me of the rabbonim who once upon a time paskened across the board that you COULD NOT kasher a microwave for Pesach simply because they had no idea how to do it. Today you won't find such rabbonim in most places, and microwaves are among the most simple things to kasher - certainly compared to a stove.

So saying "Rav X" says "no" even if Rav X is known as a godol, I have learned to take it with a grain of salt (and believe it or not, you can make flour out of a certain kind of salt, you just wouldn't want to eat anything made with it!) Because rav Y and rav Z who were gedolim, only 30 years ago paskened that you couldn't use a microwave for Pesach.

My father, who knew physics and mechanics paskened that you could definitely kasher a microwave. People who listened to him were called heretics (we are talking shtark MO here, not charedim) and suddenly, wham, charedim kasher microwaves using the exact same technique that my father and other said was ok to use on those first microwaves 30 years ago.

So...

Seraph

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 8:42 am

First off, kasha is kitniyos....
secondly, just because I said rav blumenkrantz said something doesnt mean that everyone must follow that. you have your own rav. rav blumenkrantz happened to have been my seminary teacher for kashrus halacha, so I take what he says to mean me personally, as I view him as my personal rav. you ask your rav. I was just supplying a tidbit- rav blumenkrantz says its not ok.

Btw, how does quinoa differ from rice in terms of its usage, which is why rice is kitniyos and quinoa not? Corn wasnt around during the time of the gzeira but its still kitniyos, y is quinoa a different story?

shalhevet

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 8:52 am

freidasima wrote:

So what? There are things that are easily turned into flour and those which no one does, even if it is theoretically possible.

Quote:

Quinoa was not known at the time of the gezera of kitniyot. Therefore halachawise it is not kitniyot because kitniyot was on very specific things that were known at the time. Not an amorphous "anything that can be made into looking like flour".

That is one opinion. And other opinions say that things that, logically speaking, the rishonim WOULD have included in the gezeira had they been around at the time, are still kitnios (things like mustard, sesame etc).

Quote:

Rav Blumenkrantz is not the only acceptable opinion in this matter and if that is his reasoning, it reminds me of the rabbonim who once upon a time paskened across the board that you COULD NOT kasher a microwave for Pesach simply because they had no idea how to do it. Today you won't find such rabbonim in most places, and microwaves are among the most simple things to kasher - certainly compared to a stove.

I really don't know anything about Rav Blumenkrantz, but I think your comment is chutzpa about any rov.

Quote:

So saying "Rav X" says "no" even if Rav X is known as a godol, I have learned to take it with a grain of salt (and believe it or not, you can make flour out of a certain kind of salt, you just wouldn't want to eat anything made with it!) Because rav Y and rav Z who were gedolim, only 30 years ago paskened that you couldn't use a microwave for Pesach.

Well whoopee for you. Did you know there's a Torah mitzva to listen to the gedolim of the time? And maybe they are the ones who understand, and maybe you are the one with the faulty reasoning. Did you think of that?

Quote:

My father, who knew physics and mechanics paskened that you could definitely kasher a microwave. People who listened to him were called heretics (we are talking shtark MO here, not charedim) and suddenly, wham, charedim kasher microwaves using the exact same technique that my father and other said was ok to use on those first microwaves 30 years ago.

So...

You forget that microwaves have also changed in the last 30 years.

NotInNJMommy

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 8:52 am

Was that R. blumenkrantz position (that it is kitniyos). I know the last time I learned from his pesach sefer (which was the last year it was published with his name I think), he acknowledged halachic room for quinoa to NOT be kitniyos.

We are eating by some very shtark shluchim who do eat kitniyos. *shrug* And they are very shtark and make everything from scratch ,e tc. (even roast their own coffee beans...)

I've never made it bc I've never found an easy way to buy it that I'd feel comfortable it was kosher l'pesach...so also, I never asked a personal shailah bc I personally wanted to make it.

Seraph

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 9:03 am

NotInNJMommy wrote:

Word for word from his sefer:

Quote:

Halachically quinoa may be considered in teh same halachic status as potatoes and is kosher lipesach. however, since it carries the description of a grain (even though in reality it is not) and one can make glour and bake with it, I do not give carte blanche for everyone to use it at this time.

freidasima

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 9:18 am

shalhevet, calm down. You have absolute "emunas chachomim" in the sense of "they can't make a mistake" . I don't. Because, if you are talking about modern day chachomim at least, those who I have seen and known in my lifetime, the fact is...they do make mistakes because they are uninformed in many fields. Because even I have lived long enough to see it happen.

No, microwaves haven't changed.

Also unlike kusmin (modern Hebrew), kusemet (modern hebrew, not the tanach term) is NOT kitniyot. Buckwheat is two strains, the kusmin is kitniyot, the kusemet is not. I was using the English term buckwheat (or kasha) which is used for both kusmin and kusemet.

Mustard is not kitniyot. Mustard is ossured because it grows together with wheat and can often not be differentiated. Pure mustard seeds are KLP not kitniyot.

now back to microwaves and emunas chachomim. I who grew up around them and saw how they change their psikos not because things change but because finally someone gives them the correct scientific, biological, agricultural explanations that they didn't have.

Does that mean that their original psak was wrong? Those people who want to square the circle and bury their heads in the sand will say that of course their psak was right, they are always right even if today their psak about the exact same things is a diamerically opposite psak because before they were misinformed.

Sorry shalhevet, those rabbonim who ossured microwaves to be kashered in the late 1970s and early 1980s were misinformed. And so their psak was misinformed. And the only rabbonim with the right psak in those days were the MO ones who had also gone to college and learned physics and mechanics and could understand right away how to kasher a microwave.

Proof of the pudding? The microwaves didn't change one bit, the rabbonim who changed their psak changed it to exactly the same psak that the MO rabbonim who they had come out against had given a few years earlier. Using the exact same technique which the MO rabbonim said to use in 1978 or 1980...but it's all politics, and don't we know it and don't kid yourself. They couldn't backtrack and say "hey, we were wrong", they just "milu pihem mayim" when they were asked why their psak changed.

Lots of articles about this one in various places, including the Jewish press of those days...

Also don't try to re-think the rishonim. And don't add what you THINK they would have done. We go by what they did, what they ossured. And what you are doing is the typical adding an unnecessary humra due to your own interpretation of the rishonim.

BeershevaBubby

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 9:26 am

See last year's quinoa thread.

Here is a quote from the original Psak that was posted in 1996:

Quote:

In an article in Kashrus Kurrents (Rabbi Heinerman of the Star K in Baltimore) there is an article entitles "Quinoa: The Grain That's Not". I quote "Quinoa was determined to be Kosher L'Pesach in the summer of 1996, when Rabbi Aaron Tendler of Yeshivas Ner Israel, brought a box of quinoa to Rabbi Blau, Dayan of the Eidah Hachareidus in Israel. Rabbi Blau consulted with professors at the vulcan Institute and ruled quinoa to be Kosher L'Pesach.

"Rabbi Blau told Rabbi Tendler that quinoa is not related to the chameshet minay dagan, five types of grain, nor to millet or rice. It is according to the Towson Library Reference Desk, a member of the "Goose foot" family, which includes sugar beets and beet root. It does not grow in the vicinity of chameshet minay dagan. As with other Pesach products, quinoa should not be purchased from open bins, but rather in sealed packages".

shalhevet

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 10:45 am

freidasima wrote:

Mustard is not kitniyot. Mustard is ossured because it grows together with wheat and can often not be differentiated. Pure mustard seeds are KLP not kitniyot.

Well, I guess there are different opinions on that one.

Quote:

Also don't try to re-think the rishonim. And don't add what you THINK they would have done. We go by what they did, what they ossured. And what you are doing is the typical adding an unnecessary humra due to your own interpretation of the rishonim.

This is nothing to do with what I think. I said before there are different opinions of poskim today whether we consider as kitniyot things we think the rishonim would have included, had those veggies been around at the time.

freidasima

Tue, Mar 03 2009, 11:59 am

Shalhevet, first of all those of us who are gluten sensitive know down to a T what is chometz and what is not...and what is kitniyot and what is not..unfortunately, "al gufeinu" as they say.

Second, some of those poskim today often take tremendous "poetic licence" in interpreting rishonim...and by doing so, many are also being machshil a tremendous group of people who hear these psikos which don't make sense to them and they are then not only turned off by the posek and by the shita but some go much further and move more and more away from normative yiddishkeit as a result.

I say this, unfortunately, from knowing quite a lot of people who reacted like that. They knew exactly what the rishonim said and took it, pshuto kemashmao and then these rabbonim suddenly come along like they are inventing the wheel and they try to throw their psikos back as if this is what the rishonim had meant when there is absolutely no proof of such a thing and then...well you see the results in some of the things that are happening today in very left wing yiddishkeit. Many of whose members were turned off from normative yiddishkeit just by narishkeit like that.