A mixture of chopped apples, pears and walnuts.

A reminder of the clay with which our ancestors were made to work. An acrid substance — wine (red if possible) — is added to it as a reminder how the teeth of Israel were set on edge by the harshness of their bondage.

Additional interpretations:

The Charoset is made of a mixture of fruits to which the people of Israel have been compared. This mixture is then softened by a red liquid, as a reminder of the blood which was the first of the ten plagues.

There is a mnemonic for Charoset: "Charoshet eben. . . charoshet eitz" (Exodus 31:5): the words eben and eitz are acronyms for the Yiddish words epel (apples), baren (pears), nissen (nuts), ingber (ginger), and zimerind (cinnamon). [For many years ginger and cinnamon have not been used for Charoset, lest some chametz become mixed in with them in their processing.]

The mixture is called Charoset to remind us of the bricks made of charsit (clay).