Passover dinner, called a seder, typically occurs on the first or second night of Passover, sometimes both nights. The centerpiece of every Passover seder is the seder plate.
The seder plate typically sits in the center of the table and houses five foods, all of which symbolize different aspects of the Passover holiday.
Every seder plate should include the following:
Shank bone (zeroa), to represent the lamb that was slaughtered the night before the Jews were expelled from Egypt.
Hard-boiled, roasted egg (beitza), to represent rebirth and renewal.
Bitter herbs (maroset and chazeret), like parsley, to represent the bitterness of slavery.
Charoset (here we’re using the Hebrew, because there isn’t an equivalent English word), a sweet brown mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon, and wine, represents the clay that the Jews used to build when they were enslaved in Egypt.
Vegetable (karpas), like celery, lettuce, or, again, parsley. This is placed on the seder plate as a symbol of spring and hope.
We wrote more about why these are essential components of a seder
here.
That’s all you need to set up the perfect plate, besides a plate itself! You can use any plate, but there are specialized seder plates available at many Judaica shops. While we love
this one, you could also fashion your own using
Ferm Living’s large speckle plate topped with their
small bowls.
Now that you’ve set the ceremonial part of the table, it’s time to organize the rest.