Tuesday, April 10, 2012

BUSINESS IS NOT RISING: Planet Money's Adam Davidson explores the economics of the matzoh business.

related: NYT says "matzo," NGram suggests "matzah" is dominant.

related: Carrying on a conversation from Twitter: Manischewitz candy fruit slices—it's all about the red ones, right?

46 comments:

  1. Marsha9:41 AM

    For me, it's all about the orange ones. (Well, mostly, it's about the Joyva marshmellow twists, but if we're talking candy fruit slices, it's the orange ones.

    Clearly, you and I are Jack Sprat and his wife.

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  2. As previously stated on Twitter, I prefer the green ones.  The correct order is green, then red.  The yellow and orange are nasty, and sit in the back of the pantry until they are thrown away around Halloween.

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  3. Marsha9:58 AM

    The green ones? THE GREEN ONES??!?!?!?! The green ones are a scourge, a pox on humanity. They're filler so the box will look jewel-like and pretty, but they're not meant to actually be consumed by humans.

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  4. bristlesage10:02 AM

    Another vote for the orange ones.  And I don't care how you spell the name of that unleavened bread, it's just a charoset delivery device for me. (N.B.: I am not Jewish.)

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  5. Fred App10:04 AM

    Another vote for the marshmallow twists -- which, to be eaten properly, should be kept in the freezer and then only slightly defrosted before serving.

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  6. Red, yellow, orange, green.  In that order.

    Did anyone else's box have watermelon this year?  I picked up a box at Fairway in NYC and there were watermelon slices - red with green rind.  A nice change from years past.

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  7. Oh, and - Words With Friends accepts "matzo" but not "matzah."

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  8. My surprise in the article was that Manischewitz only has a 40% share of the market.  As a Gentile, that's the only brand of motzo/matzah/matzoh I could think of.

    The other story is the black market that exists in KFP Coke, which is the only US Coke product that uses sugar rather than HFCS as a sweetner, thus leading to an odd rush between crunchy granola types and Hasidim in Brooklyn to get it first.

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  9. I like your style, Marsha.  Although it sounds like we should never try to share a box of fruit slices, lest we be forced to battle over them.

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  10. Adam C.11:01 AM

    First off, we had the Gluten Free matzah (Yehuda, I believe) at our first night seder, and it was transcendent, as matzah goes.  Apparently, it's very expensive (at least in Great Neck, where we were sedering), but I'll be looking for it next year.  Alas, we already had bought our five-pack of the standard variety Osem....

    On the dessert side, I don't eat 'em, but I'll always have a fondness for Jell-Rings/Ring-Jells. One year in college, a housemate's mom sent several boxes to him. No one would touch them...until we discovered (I can't even remember how) that when thrown, especially sidearm, it was like throwing the filthiest 9-to-3 curveball imaginable. And thus began the Great Jell-Ring War of 1992, pitting housemate against housemate and pesahdikah chocolate-covered candies against our beige walls. Good times.

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  11. Marsha11:28 AM

    Frozen marshmallow twists are how I get through the holiday. (Well, that and my Passover ice cream maker.)

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  12. Marsha11:29 AM

    That's one spectacular mental image.

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  13. Marsha11:29 AM

    I know several people here who buy 52 bottles of K-for-P Coke each year- enough to tide them over to the following year. Woe is them in years where Adar Bet creates mroe than 52 weeks between Pesachs...

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  14. isaac_spaceman11:40 AM

    It shocks me (jokingly) that a person with your CV would cite the online equivalent of a Scrabble dictionary for approved and unapproved uses.  iPhone Boggle won't let me spell "intel," "meth," or "queer" either, but I'm fairly certain those are words. 

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  15. Don't worry, Isaac, I'd never rely on Words With Friends to tell me what is and isn't a word.  (But WWF won't accept maror, either - and yet does accept anglicized spellings of Hebrew letters.)

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  16. isaac_spaceman11:46 AM

    Ah, the game of "throw random shit at each other," the national pastime of college males.  Many long hours spent working up a sweat either throwing or ducking random shit.  Shoes!  Basketballs!  Mac-and-cheese powder!   

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  17. My father once told me of an EPIC water battle in their brand new dormitory - it was back when fire extinguishers used water and were refillable.  Guys were hurling glasses of water at each other, filling up buckets, setting up garbage cans full of water so that opening the room door (they opened inward) would flood the room. Father said shoes were floating in closets.  This was mostly happening on the top floor, which obviously affected the floors below as ceilings started dripping and giving way.  Eventually, the Dean of Student Service, the Dean of Housing, and the Dean of Male Students were summoned.  As their elevator opened on the top floor, they were greeted by the sight of one maniacal freshman cornering about 3-4 other freshman with some rather aggressive fire extinguisher posturing.  Oh, and did I mention that at some point there had been a mutal, unspoken agreement amongst the students that this entire water fight should be conducted in the nude?

    All of this is to say - he'll tell me that story, but he still won't tell me about an infamous snowball fight that involved the same dorm. Every year I ask for it on my birthday and every year he tells me I'm not old enough to hear it.

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  18. Joseph J. Finn11:59 AM

    Matt, the real black market is in finding sources of Mexican-produced Coca-Cola in glass bottles.  Available year round if you know where to find it with a wink and a nod.

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  19. Marsha12:00 PM

    Adam C, were you throwing them at each other, or at targets? Because I can't tell if this is more like what Isaac is talking about or more like LindaBagel. (I was picturing something more like LindaBagel, but then again, I'm female.)

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  20. Adam C.12:07 PM

    Oh, we were whipping them at each other, but it was a little of both.  That sidearm motion was really essential in nailing the poor bastards who thought they were hunkering down out of sight next to the kitchen pass-through.

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  21. kd bart12:07 PM

    What about some love for macaroons?

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  22. Adam C.12:09 PM

    I've been to a Wegmans in South Jersey that carries the Mexican Coke in glass bottles, so that's maybe a little less dangerous sounding.

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  23. I can't be the only person here who heard that story and thought, "Dude, stop gushing about the high barriers to entry that preserve your dominant market share!"  (In my industry (telecom), no CEO would do that (except in private, to investors).)

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  24. Heather k12:25 PM

    Do these people not know about Mexican coke? Because there are some grocery stores here where you can get that pretty much all the time (dateline Chicago).  And because I grew up in a very Mexican-American town in Washington state, there are Mexican grocery stores there where you can always get it.  Related, I am not entirely sure they make Coca Lite without sugar.

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  25. Heather k12:27 PM

    Oops, I hadn't read through the comments.

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  26. I played DALETH yesterday. That was fun.

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  27. I like the ring jells best, too.  But for eating, not for throwing.

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  28. littleredyarn1:01 PM

    The Wegman's in Cherry Hill carries the Mexican Coke. My boyfriend is still looking for the Dr. Pepper with sugar, and not HFCS.

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  29. Genevieve1:23 PM

    For me, it's a cream cheese delivery device, though I'm happy to use it for charoset sometimes.

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  30. Genevieve1:32 PM

    Will have to freeze our remaining ones (except for those being sent in school lunches).

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  31. Genevieve1:34 PM

    I'm constantly surprised at what versions of Yiddish words WWF will accept, and ditto Scrabble.  Will have to check if Scrabble dictionary allows both (correct) versions, and/or my preferred version (matzoh).

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  32. Genevieve1:40 PM

    I was explaining to the kiddo this morning that matzoh-makers have to spend a lot on hiring rabbis to make sure the rules are followed.  He said that rabbis should start matzoh companies because they'd save on having to hire them.  I'm still thinking that one through - we didn't discuss whether that would work b/c they wouldn't have time to do all their rabbinical business during the matzoh-baking season, but I guess it would help with the seasonal buying problem discussed in the article.

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  33. Genevieve2:08 PM

    Red, orange, in that order.  I won't touch yellow or green in gumdrops, regular jelly beans (as opposed to Jelly Bellies, where yellow could be pina colada or buttered popcorn and green could be watermelon), or fruit slices.

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  34. Andrew2:41 PM

    i'm pretty sure that I've played MATZAH in online Scrabble, in which case, it would be in the Scrabble dictionary. (If I played in person, it was accepted because it's correct.)

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  35. isaac_spaceman3:04 PM

    I usually go with the Italianate "mazza." 

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  36. Maggie3:29 PM

    And now I need to go watch a bunch of Better Off Ted.

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  37. Maggie3:45 PM

    Russ - I thought the same thing.  I'm sure the GC wasn't too happy with that interview and is hoping that the FTC wasn't listening too hard...

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  38. Maggie - A partner of mine became an FTC Commissioner last week (actually she is formally sworn in this coming Monday).  I sent this to some of the Jews in my office with the comment "If only I knew an FTC Commissioner...."

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  39. Genevieve: Sounds like Kiddo should read Coase's "The Theory of the Firm."  Unless Isaac wants to write a sitcom plot that will summarize it for him by analogy.   

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  40. Genevieve6:27 PM

    The kiddo is currently planning to study economics and has read Moneyball, but I think Coase might be a little hard going at this point.  Sitcom plot analogies are always good (especially if they tie in to Big Bang Theory, The Office, Friends, Parks and Rec, or 30 Rock).

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  41. My Mexican coke availablity: available at the more upscale* Wal-mart, along with Mexican Sprite. Equal distance in the opposite direction and in another county is the more downscale* Wal-mart, which does not carry Mexican coke. 

    * eyeballing neighborhood demographics.

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  42. Marsha9:20 AM

    Anyone know if I can freeze cooked quinoa? I was a little overzealous in the cooking of quinoa this year and am unwilling to waste quite this much food.

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  43. Rachel12:48 PM

    Yes, I'm pretty sure you can. Haven't tried it myself, but I have friends who swear by it.

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  44. Heather k3:44 PM

    That might be one where you want to freeze it in bits like in a muffin tin and then bag the bits in bigger groups once solid.

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  45. Marsha12:33 PM

    Thanks, all!

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  46. Much belated comment: 29 across in today's (4/16) NYTimes crossword puzzle: "matzoh"

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