Mazanto Agarunov is the matriach of a family that includes five children and -- so far -- ten grandchildren, though she expects many more. Passover calls for a family feast every day -- not just during the Seders. The table is laid with the traditional holiday "ashkana" beef stew, the "khoyagusht" spinach and egg dish, fried beef cutlets, nuts, a blood-red pomegranate and copious sweet mint tea. The Mountain Jews will not eat anything made with powdered sugar on Passover, perhaps because it might contain grain, so every table includes a bowl of sugar cubes. The women prepare "hasorut," which probably evolved as a mispronunciation of "haroset" during centuries of isolation and decades of Communist religious repression. The only imported item on the table is the matzah, supplied since the early 1990's by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

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