The Passover

The Jewish festival week of the Passover commenced on Monday evening last. On that evening we saw our Jewish citizens flocking to their synagogue in Forrest’s block. A contemporary says that during the continuance of this, the most important religious festival in the Mosaic calendar, the faithful eat of unleavened bread, and on the two first and two last days abstain from all labor. In the manufacture of the bread, flour of the finest quality is used. It is mixed with water only, forming a thick past, which is flattened out and submitted in an oven to a temperature of 212° F, which forms it into a dense, hard cake, about the size of a dinner plate. From the small moisture it contains, it may be kept a long while without moulding or becoming sour.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 16, 1862, p. 1