Vegan Jewish Seder...

[thorfinn]

Eclectic, that's me. Some of you probably know that I went to The Emanuel School (a small, private, Reform Jewish school), for the last four years of highschool. I was one of a year level of about 30 students, about 3-4 of whom were non-Jews. Quite an interesting experience, really. Not too many non-Jews can lay claim to have a reasonable understanding of what Pesach (passover) is about, or Yom Kippur, or how the Hebrew Calendar works... Also, despite being determinedly not a vegetarian (I do agree with the ethical point "if you aren't willing to kill it, you shouldn't eat it", I just happen to be willing to kill it to eat it) , I have a rather startling number of vegetarian (of various kinds) of friends. I like having a wide and weird group of friends and acquaintances. Certainly it helps me understand posts like this one, about A Vegan Seder. I'm mostly making this post for mordwen, though, who I suspect will be quite interested in that post.

Comments

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it still amuses me that you went to a Jewish high school. :) But it makes you more eclectic, and that's almost never bad.

Wow

[http://users.livejournal.com/raven_/]

Not only did I understand most of it, but I want one!!!

Mind you, I'm far too lazy to go to that much effort myself, but if someone was to have a Vegan Seder, I'd love to come, and bring a dish of *something*.

Again, I say wow.

And Yum!

Re: Wow

[thorfinn]

Yes, but you're Jewish, and at least semi-vegetarian, IIRC. Still, I too would be potentially interested... I haven't been to a seder since highschool, and I'd probably enjoy one. The one slight oddity that I recall is that I like the parsley dipped in salt water... Quite tasty, really, which makes it kinda not very symbolic of what it's supposed to symbolise...

Yes, but...

[http://users.livejournal.com/raven_/]

I haven't been to a seder for close on 15 years, methinks.

And yes, to both the Jewish and semi-vegi :-)

My biggest problem is the eggs. I'm allergic. Extremely so. Natch, no gefilte fish, no balls of anything, no noodles in my chicken soup.

It's very depressing.

I do have a recipe for vegetarian borscht (sp?) in my Jewish recipe book, that I'm a'hankerin' to try!

Re: Yes, but...

[thorfinn]

With the chicken soup... Try rice noodles instead? I think it's possible to get the right thickness of cylindrical "thin rice noodle", which should give the same effect, if broken up short. I frequently make a chicken soup, which is a weird chinese medicine soup thing. :) I sometimes boil up the rice noodles, drain them off, then pour the medicine soup on top... works great. Puts a rose in every cheek.

[rosefox]

I found a recipe for vegan matzoh balls once. It suggested tofu instead of egg, and then baking them. My mother and I looked at each other and shook our heads at the very thought. Some things just can't be veganized. *)

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Some things can't be veganized, but happily, matzah balls are not among them. :) I use potato starch as a binder -- they turn out great. Using tofu as a replacement would most likely not work for a very observant Jew, anyway.

[mordwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that, Thorf. I turned down my Aunt's offer to fly to Sydney for the 18-person Seder she was organising. I don't really consider myself Jewish anymore, but I have been threatening to have a big Chanukah dinner down here for a while... and Seder would be fun too. So... thorfinn, raven_, how about latkes at my place in December?

I'm not even fully vego, but the idea of a vego or vegan seder is intriguing. I've always been a huge fan of charoset... mmmmmmmmm....

As for kitniot (see discussion on pheremone's LJ (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pheromone/195834.html)), my family may be Ashkenazi but the parentals were humanist atheist Jews who had left the Orthodox community before I was born. They did take us to Temple Emmanuel (liberal judaic, what would be called reform in the US) but we never observed the more odd rules of kashrut, such as avoiding milk/meat combos let alone strange customs that have little talmudic support.

(BTW, while checking my spelling of Ashkenazi, I discovered bizarre research indicating that women of Ashkenazi descent have a greater risk of heriditary breast cancer! Since one of my Aunts died of it, that's scary.)