Youngest [just home for the hols]: What’s for supper tonight?

Mother: Passover.

Youngest: Seriously.

Mother: Seriously, we’re having a Passover supper.

Second Y: The Rugby. Dad and I keep telling you we’re watching the Rugby tonight.

M: Passover is a prior commitment.

SY: No, we said yesterday we’re watching the Rugby. You didn’t come up with this Passover notion until breakfast.

M: I think Passover predates yesterday. And Rugby.

SY: It can’t be Passover tonight, anyway. What makes you think it’s Passover?

M: The Chief Rabbi, on Thought for the Day this morning.

SY: Oh, the Chief Rabbi, eh? Since when has Passover been the same night as the Rugby?

M: And Fleur. When I asked her how we celebrate it. Though it is odd, because Shaun said it’s not full moon till Sunday so it should be next week. But I thought Fleur probably knew better. And possibly the Chief Rabbi.

Y: What do you eat for Passover?

M: Boiled eggs, salt water, parsley, horseradish.

Y: I said what do you eat for Passover? What food?

M: Boiled eggs, salt water, parsley, horseradish…

Y: None of that is food.

M: Lamb, I assume. Unleavened bread.

Y: So. Eggs, meat, bread. That’s it? Parsley is not food. This is all healthy rubbish. I’ve just come home from school. I need a junk fest.

SY: Mother, you can’t just decide parsley is part of Passover because it sounds like the word Passover. That’s not how it works. Apart from anything else, it’s is a translation.

M [Rising above]: Horseradish for the bitter herbs, to remind us of the exile in the wilderness. Egg to symbolise life. Salt for the tears of, um, something or other: exile again I expect. By the waters of Babylon wait no sorry scroll back. Parsley because it’s green, and, for, you know. And unleavened bread, obviously, because…

SY: This all sounds like Cultural Appropriation to me.

M: It’s not Cultural Appropriation. I asked Fleur. I said, is this offensive, Fleur, if we celebrate Passover? And she said, why on earth would it be offensive? Jesus celebrated Passover. Not once, but three times, in John’s Gospel. Why shouldn’t you celebrate Passover? Next year, we’ll invite you for Passover.

SY: Just because one Jew, your cousin, says…

M: Anyway, what’s wrong with Cultural Appropriation?

SY: You’re such a Colonialist.

M: Are you saying we can’t eat Anglo-Indian fusion? Are you? What about jalfrezi? Are you telling me I can’t eat kedgeree? Well?

SY: Kedgeree is certainly Cultural Appropriation.

Youngest: I thought it was a fish.