Passover began on Wednesday, and many Jewish families are getting ready to prepare their favorite holiday meals. To help those celebrating, Jake Cohen, author of Jew-Ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch, stopped by the Cheddar News studios to talk about the significance of the holiday and share (and showcase) some of his favorite recipes.  

<div class="block">Passover began on Wednesday, and many Jewish families are getting ready to prepare their favorite holiday meals. To help those celebrating, Jake Cohen, author of <i>Jew-Ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch</i>, stopped by the Cheddar News studios to talk about the significance of the holiday and share (and showcase) some of his favorite recipes.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="article-body-video" data-caption="" data-isLive="false" data-src="https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/9f4a69f2-05d1-4391-9dbe-205b45d25c4a/9f4a69f2-05d1-4391-9dbe-205b45d25c4a.m3u8"></div><div class="article-body-video" data-caption="" data-isLive="false" data-src="https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/1c687571-5e69-4ac1-ae86-1172e53061c5/1c687571-5e69-4ac1-ae86-1172e53061c5.m3u8"></div>

Wake Up With Cheddar

Cookbook Author Jake Cohen Shares His Favorite Passover Recipes 

Welcome back, everyone. Passover officially begins at sundown today and to mark the special eight day celebration, our very own channel and Lear has learned how to make some delicious treats for Happy Passover to you guys. I am here this morning with a culinary genius, the author of Jewish. We are with Jake Cohen who is a New York Times best selling author. You're gonna teach us a little bit about Passover as well as some of the traditional items that people have during Passover. So thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Let's start off with educated people. What exactly is Passover and how long does it last? So it's one of my favorite Jewish holidays. One of, of the beautiful things about Judaism is that these holidays are really like kick off for conversation gathering community uh and having really some meaningful talk about the past, the present and the future Passover. Obviously, it's the story of our exodus as slaves in Egypt. But really, it's this opportunity to gather your friends and family and have a conversation about systems of oppression and the value of freedom. So we do that through a which is this kind of order of events throughout retelling the story um with a lot of culinary symbolism and it's eight days of lots of food, right? Lots of food but must be good. OK. So there's certain things you can't eat during past no bread matza, which is the most traditional thing. It's actually to be said is the only thing that we can say is it exclusively Jewish food? No one else can claim it. Um And this is because we were fleeing Egypt and we didn't have time to let our bread rise. So, so instead of eating any bread throughout Passover, you can only have Matzo and Matzo is like a big cracker cracker. And today we're gonna make some Matzo pizza rack. This has become like a favorite in my family really? Because it's like you could just eat this plain smeared with some butter. But if you throw on some sauce and cheese into the oven, it's like a very easy thin crust. Pizza makes it so much better. A very simple dinner. So what are some of the other traditional Passover meals that you have in your book? Yeah. So I, I love that. I come from a very New York background, Ashkenazi Seinfeld esque. So you got your male soup, your brisket. Um But my husband is Persian Rocky Jewish and they have their own set of culinary traditions. We're also gonna be making haji bad, which are these very traditional almond cookies that are completely flourless. That are just so good. Perfect for Passover. Oh, that sounds good. Is there one go to drink that people also have. Funny enough you have to also have kosher for Passo for alcohol because you can't have anything with wheat in it. So there's no beer. A lot of wine isn't like part of it, even a lot of spirits. Uh What are some of the big misconceptions people have with Passo that it's all about just a celebration or food. Really, I, I it's a quite serious opportunity to extend gratitude for freedom and really have a meaningful uh gathering with those that you care for. I, I think there is this idea that you're too focused on creating the meal and not focused enough about what's the space that you're creating? Oh, so a lot of food, family and thankful prayers as well. All right. OK. All right. We're gonna get all of that in throughout the morning, but coming up in about a half an hour, we're gonna be back out here making Matzo pizza. This will be my first Matzo pizza. So we're gonna teach you guys how to do it and make it taste good. Stay tuned for that.