‘Vermatzah’ links ancient traditions to contemporary tastes

Vermatzah ships to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston from its headquarters in a small town in Vermont.

By STACEY MORRIS
Vermatzah Matza (photo credit: Courtesy)
Vermatzah Matza
(photo credit: Courtesy)
MIDDLETOWN SPRINGS, VERMONT – Micro-bakers Julie Sperling and Doug Freilich have been crafting organic, fire-baked breads and focaccia at their Naga Bakehouse for more than a decade. But in the past few years, they’ve also been developing a seasonal product for Passover: Vermatzah.
The whole-wheat, focaccia and sourdough loaves Sperling and Freilich produce at their mountaintop bakery for most of the year are sold at food co-ops and farmers’ markets around Vermont, Massachusetts and New York. And unlike many locally baked breads, theirs is made primarily from locally sourced grains.
Despite the local food movement exploding in recent years throughout the New England region, Sperling said the one missing piece of the puzzle was locally sourced grains. “We’ve made a concerted effort to bring them back in,” she explained.
Seven years ago, Sperling and Freilich got the idea to use some of their local, organic and sustainable ingredients to make a bread product that is infused with sentimental meaning for them: unleavened bread for the observance of Passover.
“It’s something we’ve been working on for a while, and we’re getting better and better at it,” Freilich said.
“We’re a small farm micro-bakery working with regional growers, who provide blends of organic wheat and ancient emmer.”
Sperling and Freilich market their product as “Eco-kosher,” although they have yet to take the plunge into certification with the rabbinate. “Every year we revisit the kosher question and have had innumerable discussions with Rabbis and Kosher certification agencies. The bottom line is, it is too expensive for a small, family-run business to take on the expense of the official certification,” explained Sperling. “Just like in the organic food movement, official certification is an onerous burden for small-scale farmers and food producers, some of whom choose and value a ‘know your farmer’ attitude by sharing their practices with potential consumers.”
Freilich added that “Eco-kosher,” for them, is “down-to-earth Judaism.”
“It’s a new movement that combines traditional dietary laws with new concerns about industrial agriculture, global warming and fair treatment of workers.
Eco-kosher is the rapid infusion of environmental issues into the mainstream of spiritual life. But, for many people, the primary daily impact of rising environmental consciousness is on the food they eat. They want it to be produced locally, sustainably, organically and humanely.”
Due to the quality of their product and the homespun nature of their matza-making, the supply in recent years has barely been able to keep up with demand.
“We have an online presence now and have recently added new baking equipment so we can make more matza,” Sperling said. “We ship the Vermatzah as far away as Los Angeles and, this year, we’re adding Boston and San Francisco to our list.”
So what is it about this particular matza that brings in all those online orders and prompts co-op and health-food-store shoppers to snap it up at the price of about $18 per box? Freilich says there are two reasons: quality ingredients, and a bread-making process guided by the noblest of intentions.
“We work with a handful of growers in Vermont, and we also grow our own grains on a small scale: spring and winter wheats, spelt, emmer, and grains from other parts of the world,” he noted. “Ingredients like emmer give the matza a slight nutty flavor; some ancient grains aren’t so suitable for bread, but they’re perfect for matza. Vermatzah represents our baking culture and our heritage.”
And it’s a far cry, both stress, from the matza they were raised on. “There are a lot of jokes about matza tasting like cardboard, and the mechanized matza generally does,” Freilich said. “Vermatzah incorporates a lot of rustic, old-world values. It’s a celebration of flavor, aroma and color that looks and tastes different.”
When the farmers’ markets slow down in the winter months, Sperling and Freilich suspend their commercial bread-making for three months, beginning in January, to focus on matza production. “We need an income that spans the full year, and this is perfect,” Sperling said.
The couple says their baking method mirrors how matza was made thousands of years ago. Rather than offering the square sheets familiar to consumers of industrial- scale matza makers, Sperling and Freilich, aided by their children – Tikko, 16, and Ellis, 13 – shape their round Vermatzah loaves by hand. “Matza was made around 5,000 years ago, and we’ve resurrected that tradition as a way of reconnecting to those times as well as reconnecting with the local food movement,” Freilich said. “That’s the platform of our woodfired bakehouse.”
Having Tikko and Ellis pitch in is also standard practice at the family-run bakehouse.
“When it comes to the production, we couldn’t do it without them,” Sperling emphasized. “We’re not as computer-literate as the kids, and they have created the shipping, invoices and billing system for the business.”
When the matza is ready for packaging, the unleavened bread is wrapped in parchment paper and then tied in twine, in a package that includes a handful of wheat seeds. Also included is a small parchment card telling the story of Passover and how the Jews fled from slavery in Egypt with only minimal possessions, plus a few rations of unleavened bread.
This year, the couple are adding new packaging that will illustrate the family’s story of how Vermatzah came to be. “Matza is a celebration of spring, of new beginnings and the beginning of the new harvest season,” Freilich clarified. “Because of that, we include seeds so people can plant their own seeds. It’s almost as exciting as the toy in the Cracker Jack box.”
Sperling said Passover has come to mean not only a remembrance of their heritage, but also an awareness of present-day injustices. “Passover’s about freedom of religion,” she asserted. “It’s important to retell the story of freedom from the bondage of slavery, but currently there are a lot of people who don’t have freedom, the right to move and free speech.”
The final phase of the family’s matza production involves their Volvo station wagon, which makes deliveries to co-ops and specialty food stores in three states – as well as to the post office for cross-country shipping. “There’s an excitement to the process,” Sperling enthused. “Baking and packaging takes time and care… and there’s anticipation from our customers, because every year, we always run out.”
Vermatzah is sold at specialty stores throughout the US, including in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco. It is also available online at $18 per box plus shipping; visit www.vermatzah.com for more information.
Stacey Morris is a freelance writer based in Albany, New York; www.StaceyMorris.com