A Pared-Down Hillel Sandwich Board

i will just have you know…that i dreamed a dream in pre-quarantine times gone by. a dream all about a hillel sandwich.

and it was not the lovely-but-diminutive “hillel sandwich board” you see before you.

no, no. this was back when i was young and unafraid. when dreams were made and used and wasted. this was a dream of unnecessarily massive proportions. the sort of large-scale, ultra-creative idea that makes you bolt out of bed in the middle of the night, clamoring for a notebook and a food processor.

it was gonna be the passover thing to end all passover things. (at least for people who love hillel sandwiches.) and it was gonna be BIG. literally and figuratively.

alas, friends, ’twas not to be.

instead, i give you…this.

…how’s that for a terribly deprecating introduction to something that is actually quite nice? oh well. i was just very, very excited about the other thing.

(of course, not to drag this out into a whole big convoluted metaphor or anything, but i guess that’s life right now: we’re excited for one thing, and then, all of a sudden, we’re given something completely different in its place. and we can either curl up into a ball and hide from it…or figure out how to make the most of this new thing we’ve been handed.)

(a really beautiful keats quote comes to mind: “i must choose between despair and energy—i choose the latter.” i’d say that’s the choice we’re faced with right now.)

ANYWAY.

enough philosophizing. let’s eat horseradish.

for the uninitiated, a hillel sandwich is a mixture of maror (bitter herbs) and charoset (traditional fruit-and-nut dish served on passover), sandwiched between two pieces of matzah. it’s bitter, it’s sweet, it’s spiritual, it’s so metaphorical. it’s the deepak chopra of sandwiches.

except jewish.

so…the hillel of sandwiches.

more on this enlightened sammie here.

if you’re thinking, “wow! two pieces of matzah? eaten like a sandwich? that sounds rather unwieldy,” you’d be correct. this thing’s a crumbly, crackly mess just waiting to happen. but that, friends, is just part of the fun—and the history. as you watch the whole thing fall apart on your dinner plate, just remember: people have been eating and espousing this architectural disaster of a sandwich for at least 2,000 years.

here, i’ve just taken the elements of the sandwich, plated them, and arranged them on a board. that’s really all there is to it! for the sake of cohesion, though, i’ll share my typical step-by-step, tutorial-style instructions below. but you really don’t need to follow any rules to bring this idea to life.

i just figured that with such tiny seders this year, you might want to pare things down and present classic foods in new, creative ways—even if you’re not entertaining anyone but your own family. hopefully, this gives you some ideas of how to do exactly that.

p.s. if you’re new around here…you should know that this project is part of my “next year in person” campaign. it’s a series of virtual seder resources intended to prove that a “passover apart” might be just as lively, vibrant, and meaningful as the passovers of years past.⁣⁣⁣ you can read more about #nextyearinperson here, find all of the virtual seder resources here, or check out the campaign on instagram here.

(and if you do join in and end up hosting your own virtual seder, use the hashtag to share your preparations with the rest of us!)

hillel sandwich board

what you’ll need:

• 1 batch maror (my family’s recipe is coming this evening to the blog, but you can also use store-bought ground horseradish!)
• 1 batch charoset
• a board or platter!
• small serving bowls
• small, sandwich-size pieces of matzah or mini matzah
• garnishes (apple slices, edible flowers, parsley, etc.—all optional)

what you’ll do:

1. arrange the charoset, maror, and matzah artfully on your board. add garnishes. serve with matzah. enjoy!