Oddsmakers Give Leftover Passover Food 1, Maybe 2 More Weeks In Fridge Before Disposal

“Who wants three-week-old meat when fresh chametz is all the rage?”

Jerusalem, April 15 – Actuaries and gambling analysts released their predictions for the next week, including an item that gives a better-than-three-to-one likelihood that an aluminum pan of brisket remaining from the Pesach holiday two weeks ago will continue to languish in its current location until residents of the domicile where it resides finally decide the time has come to chuck it, sight unseen.

Oddsmakers looking at the Cohen household in the central Shaari Hesed neighborhood of this city reached a consensus yesterday that the leftover Cohen brisket in gravy, which Mrs. Cohen labored to produce over several days and served with a great flourish at the seder on Saturday night, March 27, and rewarmed only once since then when she put her foot down and refused to prepare anything new for her children until they eat some of the perfectly good leftovers, will stay untouched in its foil-covered disposable pan until net week, or the end of the month at the outside, before Mrs. Cohen despairs of the meat’s hygienic suitability and dumps the pan out behind the building for street cats to enjoy.

“We’re looking at a fairly consistent phenomenon with a demonstrated track record,” explained bookie Shai Mazerson. “In the fifteen years the Cohens have hosted a seder and made extensive culinary preparations for Passover, only twice have they managed to finish all the leftover food, and then only because of unexpected guests who showed up with insufficient warning to prepare more fresh stuff. Every other time, the Pesach food got pushed to the back of the refrigerator and left to spoil, or at least to sit long enough to make Mrs. Cohen uncomfortable serving it even to herself. Who wants to eat three-week-old meat when fresh chametz is all the rage?”

“I’d actually have given this five-to-one odds,” observed oddsmaker Natan Detroit, “but for the fact that the economic crunch brought on by COVID over the last year-plus has made the family more frugal in its expenditures and behavior, so there’s still a reasonable likelihood that Mrs. Cohen – Mr. Cohen only sets foot in the kitchen when he helps clear the table with great fanfare every Friday night – that Mrs. Cohen will sneak the leftover brisket into something else, perhaps a deli roll, a cholent, or omelets. But precedent is still pretty strong, so I’m still leaning toward the disposal likelihood on this one, though the frugality thing makes me think she’ll hold out until the week after next, and not just next week.”

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