Of all the symbolic foods served in honor of the Jewish Passover, which begins April 4, what stirs up the storytelling around the dinner table is matzo balls, and whether they are best fluffy or hard.

Everyone swears the only way to make them is how their mother or grandma used to. These recipes have probably been passed down from the time Moses led the Jewish people out of slavery — which is what Passover is all about. Chicken soup may be the all-time soul satisfier, but in Jewish families it’s matzo balls, not noodles, that get to bathe in the broth.

Matzo meal is a key ingredient in the ceremonial Seder dinner, because it doesn’t have yeast or a leavening agent. When God gave Moses explicit instructions for the Jews’ hasty exodus from Egypt 3,000 years ago, he ordered them to eat unleavened bread because there was no time to let it rise.

Few cooks would attempt a full traditional Seder dinner, but French chef Eric Leterc of the posh Pacific Club has taken on the challenge for the Oahu Jewish Ohana for the third year in a row, for an April 4 event at the private Queen Emma Street club.

Seder organizer Judy Lind said her fellow members’ biggest concern is, "How are the matzo balls going to be this year?" They loved Leterc’s meal the first year but wanted the matzo balls to be softer — "they were like golf balls!" Lind said.

"Don’t forget, he’s facing the harshest critics! They all want it to be like their grandma’s, but they have 100 different grandmothers," she added.

Lind, who’s made matzo balls for years, was tasked with coaching the chef on his recipe this year. Being the one to teach "a very fine chef from France" how to make the dumplings took a lot of chutzpah.

"It is pretty unusual for someone like me to teach someone like him. He had a great attitude and was very open to learning," she said.

As Leterc is a master of lofty French culinary techniques, matzo balls were "definitely not in his repertoire," and he had no idea what they were supposed to taste like, Lind said.

The first year, Lind brought Leterc the ingredients and directed him to follow a recipe off the box of the popular Mani­schew­itz brand matzo meal.

The chef had to multiply the recipe enough times to make 200 balls, two for each guest. His usual method of preparing large quantities of such an item is to immerse each smaller batch in cold water to halt the cooking process and prevent mushiness, as would be done for pasta. But in the case of the matzo balls, the technique probably contributed to their hardness.

Luckily, the Pacific Club’s catering director, Jill Becker, whose former mother-in-law taught her to make "the best matzo ball soup ever," was able to detect what went wrong. Besides the cold-water bath, she noticed the chef didn’t cover the pot while simmering, which prevented the dumplings from absorbing enough liquid.

As part of fine-tuning his preparation, Lind also increased the simmering time. The result: After tasting a preliminary batch earlier this month, Lind said, "I think he got it. … He’s probably made more matzo balls than any other French chef in the country."

Lind said the traditional recipe for matzo balls calls for rendered chicken fat in place of vegetable oil, a healthier — and vegetarian-friendly — choice in today’s cholesterol-conscious world. But even if Leterc wanted to deliver a traditional dumpling, sourcing enough chicken fat would have been difficult, she said.

The broth, of course, will be made from scratch.

After all the hits and misses, Leterc still says, "It’s fun. My thing is to make people happy and make sure the food is good."

Leterc, executive chef at the Pacific Club for 13 years, admits matzo balls are a bit too bland for his taste. He prefers the richer flavors of French cuisine.

If he could put a gourmet spin on them, he might add "smoked salmon, or you could put truffles, you could add herbs, quite a few things, because it’s like a dumpling."

But no matter what individual preferences are, Leterc says food made by someone who cooks solely by instruction can’t compare to food created by those who have devoted love and years of experience to it.

"Cooking is history," he said, and he enjoys discovering why different ethnic groups used specific ingredients throughout their past.