The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-05-05
BAKING TIE MATzoTH.
How Unleavened Bread Il Prepared 70
the JeWish Passover.

How Unleavened Bread IL Prepared for
the jewish Passover.
There is an old Russian Jew, very ortho.
dox and patr1archal. with long beard and
white prayer looks. who has practically
monopolized the business Of matgoth bak.
ing a. 1t IL carried on In New York.
Matsoth. o. the unleayenod cakes Of the
Jewish Passover. are baked In enormous
quantities on the East Side. This one
man alone bakes almost two million pounds
q year.
his store is described by the American
Hetrv az no larger than IN ordinary room
dark. low oeilinsed. without lights. Along
one eide runs the counter. In front Of 1t two
deep the customers. coming and going
continuously.
Small dealers. individual buyers, large
wholesalers. women with little children
clinging to them. long bearded Jews. proba-
bly, just landed, old. middle aged and young,
all wait their turn TO buy the Passover
food, In the back Of the room. square ten
pound packages Of matEoth.
And at the top OF the stair case in a httls
compartment which seems to have been
broken into the wall, a machine with o
continuous whirr grounds the baked mat
10th into matSoth meal. The meal falls
into a large box which stands beneath II and
an operator. white from head to foot with
-four, dispenses It to the customers.
The place where the matEoth are manu-
featured Is In reality the cellar. You de-
scend from the street a few steps and look
in through q glassless window, and the
bakery appears before you.
Beneath the window stands @ man fran.
tically mixing the hour In a copper bowl.
Beside this man, whose curly yellow hair
and beard were white with powder, there
was. when the reporter visited the place,
a boy who handed the -four, first mixing
IL with water which had been standing
over night according 10 the ritual.
The -four itseh was OF the finest wheat,
had attended TO its purchase. Every year
about four months before Pesach he rents
a mill In Syracuse, buys the best wheat
that Is proourable In the market and after
the mill IL thoroughly cleaned Of chonets
he secs that II Is ground under conditions
After the -four was thoroughly mixed
IL was passed TO a machine and run through
heavy steel rollers, back and forth half a
sary thinness. By this time Il vas in long
thin rolls about two feet In width. It was
gathered up and cut in half longthwise
with o sharp, hin knife.
The two rols, now OF the required breadth,
were carried over TO another mac hine,
through which II WA run down O Groove
under two smaller steel rollers, was per-
forated by q wheel at the end from which
stuck little steel protuberancos Like nails,
and sliced OF squarely by blAdes ct the end
OF the machine. These gquare pieces OF
dough were then placed four Apiece on n
wide, wooden platter, n thrust by long
handles into a small chamber where they
were baked.
There were two such chambers, not more
than two feet In height and extending back
some twenty feet or more. The floor
seemed TO have been made Of blocks Of
asbestos and upon II. covering the greater
part OF the chamber. were cakes OF matSoth
which were baking.
In iess thar three minutes the man with
the long wooden shovel 10 obliged 70 draw
forth the matsoth cakes, which now instead
OF being soft dough are cftsp cakta, the
ordinary Passover matsoth oakoA The
matSOtk from THE bakery arr sold al over
the country.