KITNIOS AND OTHER STUPID IDEAS

Several times over the last few years Savage Kitten has asked me Peysach-related questions. Which is understandable, as she is a person of Chinese ancestry (what on earth would they know about Passover?) and I am white (naturally, I know everything there is to know about Passover).

[In point of fact, my significant other is of Cantonese extraction. Cantonese ritual celebrations and religious practices always involve food. Hence there is an abiding fascination that even extends to white people in that regard.]


KITNIOS

I have endeavored to answer her questions as best I could.
The KITNIOS thing, however, is a stumper. All I could say was that because chometzdikkes were sold in the same bins, bales, bags, and other containers as dry goods in Eastern-Europe, there was a possibility of contamination. Which inspired a food-related paranoia that simply got worse with each generation, till finally it reached absurd proportions: a chumra against kitnios.

She understands this explanation to a certain extent, because she knows that white people are totally foaming-at-the-mouth-nuts about food, unlike Chinese people. White people are weird. She also assumes that whites have a long history of poisoning each other.

But why do Ashkenazim also avoid soybeans, sunflower seeds, and maize? Beans? Peas? Peanuts? Pepper? Caraway? Cumin? Coriander seed? Every seed and grain shaped edible substance known to man?
Some of these things were not even sold in Eastern Europe - how can anyone possibly suspect contamination? Why does it get worse every year?
How insane are white people?

Chocolate, gottenyu?!?!?

I am sometimes at a loss to defend white people. It's a problem.


"Sweetie-pie, think of it this way: Perhaps the rebbeim were paranoid about aflatoxins during Peysach. Who knows? Has to do with chodosh. Stuff that has been in storage for a while ends up funggoidal in a non-desert environment. The temperate zone is a nasty place. Everything there goes bad. Especially after a long wet winter."


[ ' 'Aha! So aspergillus is the goyish equivalent of chometz!' ']

And presto, a new chumra is born. Avoid ANYTHING during Peysach that may be susceptible to contamination by aspergillus. Which means most seed crops. Al pi Wikipedia: Crops which are frequently affected include cereals (maize, sorghum, pearl millet, rice, wheat), oilseeds (peanut, soybean, sunflower, cotton), spices (chilli peppers, black pepper, coriander, turmeric, ginger), and tree nuts (almond, pistachio, walnut, coconut, brazil nut).
Also included in the ban are soil, decaying vegetation, hay, and mulch.


ESPECIALLY chocolate cake from that fine bakery around the corner!


If she thinks in those terms, she's not likely to gift "white people" with anything chometzdik during this time of year.

I have not mentioned the gebrochts thing to her. Gebrochts are even more insane than kitnios, and I've already learned my lesson. Besides, she's not likely to find ANYTHING made with matze meal that isn't already kosher l'utmostdegree. Not in this city.