Passover Product Watch 2009: Hoo-Lachmu Passover Flats

Hoo-Lachmu Passover Flats, from Israel, are frozen planks of perfect-for-Pesach potato bread that I enjoyed heating and eating last year. The box claims they're great for sandwiches, pizza, French toast, and even "Etc." I'm not sure about how they'd work for French toast, but I got a kick out of baking them and figuring out ways to use them. Sometimes they puffed up a bit, so I could slice them open like pita bread and stuff them with cheese and other sandwichy stuff. Other times they remained flat and dense, so I could just top them or create a sandwich by breaking them into halves.

I know what you're wondering: "What the heck is a 'Hoo-Lachmu'?" According to Steve Levin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Its name is a play on the Aramaic phrase 'ha lachma anya' from the haggadah used during the seder, which says of matzo, 'this is the bread of affliction.'" Levin also writes of a rabbi joking that "Hoo-lachmu is part of Passover Technology Inc., a fictitious company dedicated to developing new Passover foods so that 'people don't whine as much because they don't have pizza.'"

Speaking of pizza, here's a take from a blog called The Presence, back in '06:

The Presence team tried them as pizza, and, we must admit, they are pretty good! Of course, with a whopping 254 calories per slice (only 74.7 from fat!), we'll probably be dead long before these make it all the way through our digestive tracts. Hoo Lachmu weighs in quite respectfully in all the other areas of "ingredients that will kill you quickly." But they sure are tasty, as far as Pesach food goes. So for this year, Hoo Lachmu wins both the coveted "Best New Pesach Food Attempting to Imitate a Chametz Product" award and the "Best Pesach Product Name Thought up by Three Chassids in Borough Park Five Minutes Before Yontif [the holiday]" award. Congratulations!

Look for this product and have fun figuring out how you'll like it best!