In the Kosher Section, Prepping (and Labeling) for Passover

When it comes to kosher foods, there’s everyday kosher, and there’s “kosher for Passover.”

It’s a basic for those who grew up in the tradition, but for others, it is rightly the first thing you’ll learn from E.J. Sabol, grocery manager at Genuardi’s in Wynnewood. Sabol is a Catholic, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks as much about Passover and the traditional Seder meal.

Passover begins this evening at sundown and continues through April 26.

“Keeping the highest standard of kashras in our store is the highest thing that we do,” Sabol said. “If I’m not sure about something, I go to the rabbi right away.”

So why is this night different from all other nights?

At Passover, Jewish custom is that no foods with leavening, or leavening agents, can be eaten. That includes corn, a staple of American packaged and processed foods.

And so it has come to pass that in recent years, mainstream grocery items have entered the Passover market. Even Coca-Cola—which uses fructose corn syrup—has introduced kosher Coke, using pure cane sugar. Look for the special yellow bottle tops with the small Hebrew writing stamp. (I found the kosher Coke to be smoother and sweeter, with a slightly medicinal nose and a cleaner finish.)

But “kosher for Passover” is not a simple matter of inventory control. In the kosher section at Genuardi’s, months go into planning for the difference between what can be bought for the eight days of Pesach.

“We have our own kosher butcher,” Sabol said, showing off the section early one morning last week, before the counter opened at 8 a.m. “Chicken, basically, is kosher for Passover.” But red meat, during the weeks leading up to Passover, is a different story—different preparation, different standards. All products are cleared out, and refrigerators and freezers scrubbed down.

Some of the backstage warmer ovens, for non-Passover rotisserie chickens and the like, are simply sealed shut for the duration. The deli is closed for one whole day to bring it up to Pesach specs.

“We strip everything—clean it, paper it, foil it, whatever has to be done to ready it for Passover,” Sabol said. “If it it’s not kosher for Passover, it won’t be at the deli counter.”

That goes for baked goods, too. Knishes, for example, are gone for the season. In fact, the kosher bakery is pretty much entirely out of action for a couple of weeks. But “everyday” dry goods and canned items can still be found, in limited quantity, in two of Sabol’s aisles. How to tell the difference? Easy—every single one of the hundreds of products in the entire section are grouped on shelves and labeled: “kosher for Passover” or “not kosher for Passover.”

“We usually start planning for Passover about four to five months before it happens,” Sabol said. That might sound like a long ramp, but it helps to remember that the food game is a retail business. A significant percentage of other types of retailers get the majority of their annual business between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“I get together with different companies, making sure we have the right product mix, and pricing, laying out schedules,” Sabol said. “We do it section by section, aisle by aisle. So yeah, it’s a lot.”

Genuardi’s, which is owned by Safeway Inc., a national chain, is not the largest of supermarkets in these days of big box superstores. And a kosher section in a supermarket is no longer a novelty for areas with large Jewish populations. Sabol said even Texas has supermarkets with kosher sections.

Other area supermarkets with kosher sections include Whole Foods in Wynnewood (339 East Lancaster Ave.) and the Acme in Narberth (829 Montgomery Ave.). Also in Narberth, there’s Main Line Kosher Meats (919 Montgomery Ave.).

You can even take a kosher cruise on Royal Caribbean these days.

But the kosher section in the Wynnewood Genuardi’s is a far cry from the way it was just five years ago. The store expanded the section many times over, from just an alcove to a few hundred square feet next door to the seafood area.

“It was very, very small,” said Sabol. “We didn’t even do red meat. Dairy was very limited. But business was building, building, building. It was needed just to keep up with the community, to give them good service.”

Pass the Horseradish

A part of the Seder that is a mystery even to many Jews is gefilte fish. Typically made from ground carp, it can also be prepared with whitefish or pike. Usually, it is prepared by opening up a jar of the stuff, bought at the grocery store, jellied or in a liquid broth. 

You can get smoked fish for Passover at Genuardi’s, but no carp.

“I’ve never seen anyone make gefilte fish,” Sabol admitted. “It is very time-consuming. For us to bring carp in and do all that, it would be a lot—a lot—of work.” He added that he can’t recall anyone even asking for carp in his years at the store. Sabol has been with Genuardi’s for 21 years, and kosher manager in Wynnewood for six.

For other, more popular Seder dishes, such as brisket, he wouldn’t even guess at the volume for the days leading up to the holiday. “A lot. Especially with the holiday falling on a Monday this year,” the weekend was expected to be exceptionally busy. “There are usually lines.”

A visit to the store on Sunday verified that statement. At 5:30 p.m., the kosher section was jammed.

Helping Sabol out are four mashgiachs, in addition to a full-time kosher deli person (Annemarie Davidson) and a kosher sushi maker (Hui Ling, who will be on vacation for the whole week of Passover—so far, there is no way to de-grain rice).

A mashgiach is often an Orthodox rabbi, but it can also be someone appointed by a rabbi who is expert in things kosher. The mashgiach is in charge of making sure that Jewish dietary laws (kashrut) are adhered to. On this morning, the mashgiach getting ready for the day was Eli Ezer.

“This is my most important guy here,” Sabol said of Ezer. “He watches over to make sure everything stays kosher. What mashgiach means in Hebrew is ‘watcher.’”

It was Ezer who answered a question about a term you’ll often see in kosher sections: “Glatt kosher.” Is that a brand name? A certain cut of brisket? Hebrew for “Just like Grandma used to make”?

Explained Ezer: The word refers to the lungs of an animal, denoting their “smoothness.”

“But it is used now really as ‘a high standard of kosher,’” he said. “Nowadays, people use ‘glatt’ for everything. But the real, true meaning of the word is only for meats.”

Ezer also was good enough to explain the traditional Seder plate, which is representative of the Exodus of ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt. (See accompanying Patch video, to be posted at 6 p.m. today.)

Ezer, Sabol and their colleagues in the kosher section make their living in a modern supermarket, but two pieces of ancient wisdom from the Talmud might describe what they do year-round. The first one is obvious: “There can be no joy without food and drink.”

Another could answer a question from the hypothetical curious child (a central part of the Seder ritual), wondering, “Why is this food different from all other food?” The ancient text says, “No one drinks from a glass without examining it first.”

“I love it,” Sabol said. “It’s a great job. I really enjoy working with the customers, the community. There’s never been a dull day for me, believe me when I say this. … It’s not even like a job. I can’t explain it to you.”