AYLİN ÖNEY TAN
Jewish connection with prickly cheese and matza
During our school years, during breaks between classes, a cheese toast was almost an obligatory snack. We would run fast to the school canteen and yell out our orders, double kaşar cheese for me, and for most others, a sure winner with the molten cheese oozing from margarine-drenched slices of toast bread. Those were the years back in the early 1970s when margarine was very much in, mostly used instead of butter, but on the bright side, our cheese was still artisanal, not processed industrial cheese. Needless to say, the grilled cheese toast was a delight, all savory goodness to fill our hungry bellies. But there was one week every year when I tried to hide my joy from a classmate Medi, who would be at the brink of tears while munching a matza. She was the ultimate grilled cheese toast fan, never skipping a single break without one. When it was the time of Pesah, she would be in deep agony, being obliged to pass over her favorite taste. Empathizing vaguely, I would try not to eat mine in front of her. I even once asked to taste the matza and pretended that I liked it.
March 28 2021
