Passover and Easter turn food into an experience: Andrew Coppolino

For Edward Steadman and his staff, planning starts six weeks out for his restaurant's busiest day.

That's no fish tale: Good Friday, bar any other "fish Friday," is the biggest day of the year for Joey's Seafood in Kitchener, where Steadman works.

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In fact, according to the corporate office, the Kitchener location is the busiest of the 44 outlets across the country.
Steadman estimates he does about four times the business on Good Friday — up to 1,000 people served — than he does on any other Friday.

He attributes that to the religious tradition of refraining from eating meat on Fridays. And this March 30 is an especially significant Friday.

"I think it has more to do with Christianity than anything else. There's a lull from two o'clock to four o'clock. All of a sudden at four, church is over and the place packs until seven or eight at night," Steadman says. 

'We likely serve thousands'

At Kitchener's The Manitou Takeout, Sherri Brezinski estimates she serves several hundred people on Good Friday. But like Joey's Seafood, that doesn't take into account multiple orders.

"One person will order for a whole family, so we likely serve thousands of people on the day. It's my biggest day by three times," Brezinski says.

Mike Snider agrees. With several Holy Guacamole locations including the one on University Avenue in Waterloo, he calculates his company sold over 1,000 fish tacos last year.

"We're doing fresh tilapia breaded in panko crumbs and ground tortilla chips. It's our busiest day of the year," Snider said.

Planning takes weeks

Even though frying a piece of fish only takes a few minutes, Steadman says they start planning six weeks before Good Friday because of Lent.

"It's a build up through the Fridays until we hit Good Friday," he says. "We'll start ordering more and more product ahead of time to be ready. Thursday night is a long night getting prepared."

A staff of 20 will work the 84-seat restaurant on Highland Road and start taking telephone orders at 9 a.m. Friday.

In her preparation, Brezinski worries that her fish order will be lost.

"Planning starts a month out, and I'm always talking to my suppliers concerned that my product will get sold elsewhere by accident," she says.

Is it a huge profit on the busy day? Not really, according to Brezinski, who says the cost of the fish is relatively high. However, for her the day represents the beginning of spring and summer business.

"It's the kickoff for the season," she says.

Passover has two 'experiences'

Now at the same time as Good Friday starts the Easter period, this year the eight-day observance of Passover begins on the same Friday evening as well.

It too includes food — and food you can't eat.

"Passover celebrates the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt a little over 3,300 years ago. We celebrate it by having two experiences that recreate somewhat the experience of slavery and then the march toward freedom. That is the Passover seder," says Rabbi Moshe Goldman of the Rohr Chabad Centre for Jewish Life in Waterloo.

Passover is in part marked by not eating any bread, cake, cookies or any leavened or fermented foods made from grain. Goldman says Passover requires pretty much reformatting your entire diet.

"Unless you don't eat carbs all year long, Passover becomes a cooking challenge, but that encourages cooking creativity," he says.

Traditional foods include matzah, an unleavened cracker made with water and flour, which Goldman says would have been eaten at the time of the Exodus.

There is also a tasting of freshly ground horseradish root that can be very hot, he adds.

"That's a five-alarm fire and you have a little bit of a physical experience of bitterness, of pain, so you can kind of experience what it was like to be a slave in Egypt."

Matzo ball soup 'cures all known human ailments'

Other foods and herbs at the seder represent tears and the bricks and mortar that the Jews used while in bondage in Egypt.

"We also drink from four cups of wine at every seder," adds Goldman.

"I know people who have a different bottle of wine for each of the four cups. You start with a light wine and end up with port. This is part of the other experience of freedom and liberation. The four cups symbolize the four expressions in the Bible that God uses to describe the Exodus."

Of course, Goldman also gives a quick recipe for a popular and delicious food that transcends religion in our food culture: Ground up matzo mixed with eggs, oil and spices that's formed into balls and boiled in chicken broth to give you matzo balls.

"Classic matzo ball soup is eaten at Passover and all-year round," Goldman says. "It's delicious, cures all known human ailments and is very good for the soul."