bitter herbs

Vegetables with characteristically bitter taste. (Exod 12:8) states, “They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.” The herbs have been variously identified as certain types of lettuce, endive, and chervil. From tannaitic times (first century CE), these herbs have been eaten at the Passover seder to represent the bitterness of the lives of the Israelites under Egyptian slavery.