Passover arrives at sundown this coming Saturday, but the Holiday really seems to be arriving each year with the annual appearance of that two liter bottle of Coke with the distinctive yellow cap emblazoned with Hebrew letters indicating that the beverage is Kosher for Passover. That means real sugar as the sweetener instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).Now I have plenty of gripes about HFCS , but this is based on religious restrictions for this particular Holiday - the details are here, but it boils down to a celebration of the escape of the Jews from Egypt, and the fact that in their hurry they could not allow their bread to rise. Any thing that is or mimics risen bread is out for the eight days of Passover.
The details of this are best left to Talmudic Scholars
(or perhaps Jesuits, they are pretty close on the hair splitting thing). For the rest of us mere mortals it makes our heads explode. Really. I have witnessed it first hand.
The bottom line is that many Orthodox Jews from Europe have decided that corn is included in the Passover prohibition, and thus HFCS is a no-no. The Coca-Cola company responds to this need by providing, once a year, Coke made with real sugar. And once a year I get that that taste I used to get out of an 8 oz. glass bottle after a little league game!
PS The tile it is on displays the Chinese pictograph for "happiness".
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