Margarine Shortage Stymies Passover Bakers

Kosher spread too pricey for most producers
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 18, 2008 2:54 PM CDT
Margarine Shortage Stymies Passover Bakers
Matzo is a traditional Passover food.   (Shutterstock)

Jewish families are facing a culinary crisis: a shortage of margarine that’s kosher for Passover. The lack of available stick margarine in particular is frustrating cooks who bake confections that offset the holiday’s ban on leavening, the Wall Street Journal reports. "There are so few really tasty things at Passover that when you find a great recipe and you can't find an ingredient, you despair," says one frustrated baker.

Cottonseed oil, a fundamental ingredient, is hard to come by because farmers chasing ethanol bucks have planted corn in place of cotton. And because of the stricter-than-usual rules about kosher-for-Passover (as opposed to merely kosher) manufacturing, just one factory is making kosher-for-Passover margarine this year. What's more, Tam Tam crackers are out of production completely. (More Passover stories.)

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