Chapter One
What Is Kosher?
Kosher is the anglicized version of the Hebrew word kasher, meaning "fit" or "proper." Food is kosher when its ingredients and the means of its manufacture or preparation have adhered to a certain set of stringent and demanding laws and restrictions. You can't make foods kosher just by saying prayers over them. Nor does it have the same meaning as "kosher-style," a phrase used to describe certain ethnic dishes or food preparations (such as "kosher" dill pickles or "kosher-style" delicatessen) or foods derived from eastern European Jewish cuisines.
Kosher means adhering to the Jewish dietary laws-some nearly 3,500 years old-that have their origins in passages of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). These were later elaborated on by rabbis who, in the Talmud, added further requirements and restrictions. (The Talmud-Hebrew for "learning"-is the massive encyclopedia of Jewish thought, commentary, and civil and religious law compiled in the first few centuries of the Common Era.) The word kosher itself does not appear in the five books of Moses, although it can be found a few times in later books of the Bible. But even here it does not refer to food specifically but to the "fitness" of items used in religious rituals.
The kosher dietary laws and rules, known as kashrut (also spelled kashrus or kashruth), govern many aspects of food preparation, cooking, and consumption for observant Jews. They include instructions for the ritual slaughter of animals, which foods are permitted, and which are prohibited. Although the purpose of these laws may have had a positive effect on health (see Chapter Seven), their original purpose was religious, an act of devotion and affirmation of faith that expressed spiritual and moral values. They provided a diet for the soul as well as for the body. The dietary laws imposed a type of self-discipline on one of the most basic elements of life-eating.
In Jewish teaching, eating is regarded as a hallowed act. The twentieth-century religious philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) wrote that kashrut hallowed the everyday by turning a natural function, eating, into something holy. Kashrut also teaches a reverence for all life. There are many admonitions in the Torah forbidding cruelty to animals, including the mandate not to "cause pain to any living creature." The Torah preaches compassion and respect for all living things, going so far as to prohibit eating animals killed by hunters, adding that animals should not be killed for anything other than food or self-preservation.
Some of the dietary laws are stated clearly in the Bible; others took on interpreted meanings through the writings and commentaries of generations of Talmudic rabbis who refined and commented on the biblical injunctions. No explicit reasons are given in the Bible for many of the prohibitions and mandates in the dietary laws. The observant accept this apparent arbitrariness because they are commanded by God to do so. The dietary laws are considered divine directives that need no rationale or explanation other than that following them leads to holiness. (The Hebrew word for holiness is kedushah, which is derived from the word kodesh, meaning "separateness.") As The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred J. Kolatch explains, "Whatever was holy was something apart, to be set aside. To be a holy people, Israel had to be apart, separated from their idol-worshipping neighbors. The dietary laws were instituted as one means of making the Jewish lifestyle different from that of their neighbors." Through the ages, the dietary laws have helped define Jewish life, giving the Jewish people a cohesive yet distinct identity.
The basic dietary laws include the following:
A prohibition against mixing meat and milk: "You shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk" (Exod. 23:19; also Exod. 34:26 and Deut. 14:21). This commandment, which is mentioned three times, led to the rule against cooking or consuming both meat and milk or dairy products together at one meal. As with other dietary laws, the Bible offers no reason for this prohibition, although some scholars think it may have derived from an abhorrence of pagan practices or rituals (offering meat boiled in milk was both a pagan form of hospitality and a pagan form of worship) or as an extension of the commandment against cruelty to animals. For what could be more indifferent or cruel than first to kill an animal and then mix its flesh with the liquid that gave it life?
A prohibition against the consumption of blood: "You shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof" (Lev. 17:14). There are numerous mentions in the Bible of blood as the symbol of the essence of humankind. In Judaism, eating or drinking of blood is considered a desecration of life itself. This belief led to a key element of kosher food preparation-the removal of blood from meat. The early rabbis concluded that when animals are killed for food, care should be taken to remove or drain as much blood as possible before the meat is cooked.
A list of permitted animals: "Of the animals you may eat any that hath both true cloven hooves and that brings up its cud" (Lev. 11:3); "Among the mammals that you may eat are the ox, the goat, the gazelle, the deer, the antelope, the ibex, the chamois, the bison, and the giraffe" (Deut. 14:4); "You may eat any creature that lives in salt water or fresh water, as long as it has fins and scales" (Lev. 11:9); "Of all the pure birds you may eat"; twenty-four forbidden species of fowl are then listed (Deut. 14:11).
A prohibition against eating certain animals: "All creatures in seas and rivers that have no fins and scales, whether invertebrates or mammals or other creatures, are an abomination to you" (Lev. 11:10); "These are the smaller animals that breed on land which are unclean to you" (a list of rodents, reptiles, and mollusks follows; Lev. 1:29); "All the winged swarming things are unclean to you; they shall not be eaten" (Deut. 14:19). Again, no reasons are given in the Bible as to why some fish and animals are proper to eat and others are forbidden. However, the identifying characteristics that make a creature fit for consumption are provided: mammals must both chew their cud and have a split or cloven hoof; fish must have both fins and scales that are removable without damaging or tearing the skin. The characteristics of permitted birds are not listed; later traditions, however, allowed that domestic fowl and birds that have a projecting claw, a crop, and a gizzard or stomach whose inner lining can readily be peeled were kosher.
The ritual slaughtering of animals for food: "Then shall you slaughter of your herd and of your flock" (Deut. 12:21). Although not described in the Bible, ritual slaughter is one of the central elements of kashrut. Ethical considerations stressing the importance of compassion and respect for all living things led to creating humane methods of animal slaughter, methods that were designed for the quickest and most painless death for the animal. Exactly what is involved in ritual slaughter and what else is done to meat to make it kosher will be discussed in detail in Chapter Five.
Kosher and Nonkosher Animals
Permitted mammals: Animals that both chew their cud (ruminants) and have a split or cloven hoof, including antelope, bison, buffalo, cattle, deer, eland, gazelle, goat, hart, moose, ox, sheep, and yak
Forbidden mammals: Camel, dog, dolphin, donkey, horse, pig, porpoise, rabbit, rodents, whale
Permitted fowl: Birds that have a projecting claw, a crop, and a gizzard or stomach whose inner lining can readily be peeled; most domestic fowl, including capon, chicken, Cornish hen, duck, dove, goose, pigeon, songbirds, squab, and turkey
Forbidden fowl: Wild birds or birds of prey, including eagle, heron, ostrich, owl, pelican, stork, swan, falcon, raven, hawk, and vulture
Permitted fish: Must have both fins and scales that are removable without damaging or tearing the fish's skin; seventy-five species including anchovy, bass, blackfish, bluefish, butterfish, carp, chub, cod, flounder, fluke, haddock, halibut, herring, mackerel, mahimahi, mullet, perch, pickerel, pike, pompano, porgy, red snapper, sablefish, salmon, sardine, shad, smelt, snapper, sole, tilefish, trout, tuna, weakfish, whitefish, and whiting. The eggs (caviar) of permitted fish are kosher.
Forbidden fish and seafood (partial list): Catfish, eel, lamprey, marlin, rays, puffer, sailfish, shark, sturgeon, swordfish, and turbot. The eggs (caviar) of nonkosher fish are not kosher. No shellfish or mollusks are kosher; this includes clam, lobster, octopus, oyster, scallop, shrimp, snail, and squid.
Also forbidden: Reptiles, invertebrates, and amphibians, including crocodile, frog, lizard, snake, toad, turtle, and worms; all insects are also forbidden.
The dietary laws of kashrut divide all foods into two categories: kosher (Hebrew, kasher), or permitted, foods and trayf (sometimes spelled trayfe or treif), food that is unfit or improper to eat. (Derived from the Hebrew word for "torn" or "damaged," trayf originally meant "torn from a wild beast" and therefore unfit to be eaten.)
Kosher or permitted foods are then divided into three categories:
1. Dairy (milchig): Milk and all its derivatives, excluding milk from nonkosher animals. (Labels on dairy products are marked "D" after the symbol of kosher certification.)
2. Meat, including poultry (fleishig): From permitted animals (ones that chew their cud, generally cows and sheep, and have split hooves), that have been ritually slaughtered, and have undergone the koshering process of soaking and salting to remove any residual blood (see Chapter Five). This procedure, which is also referred to as kashering, must be done under the supervision of a mashgiah, or rabbinic supervisor. (Labels on meat and poultry products are marked "M" after the symbol of kosher certification. An "M" may also mean that the product was processed on equipment that was used to process meat products.)
3. Neutral (pareve): Foods that are neither dairy nor meat. Based on the verses in Genesis (1:29-30) in which God gives Adam and Eve permission to eat "every seed-bearing grass" and "every fruit-bearing tree," everything that grows in the ground is considered both intrinsically kosher and pareve. This includes, in their natural state, all plants, herbs, grains, fungi, fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers, roots, seeds, and nuts, as well as food products made from them, such as sugar, tea, flour, coffee, spices, pasta, salt, oils, and most condiments.
However, once a fruit or vegetable has undergone any form of processing, it may no longer be either pareve or kosher, since a nonkosher ingredient or a meat or dairy ingredient may have been added or it may have been processed by machines that are also used to process nonkosher foods. For example, coffee beans and ground coffee are pareve, but flavored coffees may not be, since they may include nonkosher or dairy ingredients. Similarly, canned tuna fish processed in water or oil would be pareve, but some tuna fish is processed with milk byproducts and therefore would be considered dairy. Also pareve are eggs (from kosher birds), as long as there is no blood in the yolk, and fish with fins and scales. Unlike kosher meat and poultry, kosher fish need not be killed by a ritual slaughterer, nor is it soaked and salted. (Labels on pareve foods have neither "D" nor "M" after the symbol of their kosher certification.)
For observant Jews, pareve foods may be eaten with both meat and dairy foods. Because of the biblical injunction against "seething [cooking] a kid in its mother's milk," observant Jews do not cook or eat meat and milk together at the same time. Depending on local traditions, they wait between three and six hours (about the time it takes to digest meat) after a meat meal before eating any milk or milk products. (If the dairy is eaten first, there is no need for this waiting period.)
Because they may be made of porous materials that allow particles of meat or dairy to be absorbed, cooking utensils and dishes have also come under this dietary law. Observant Jews have at least two sets of pots, pans, plates, bowls, knives, forks, and so on-one for milk dishes and one for meat. For the same reason, they have two sets of dish towels and two separate bars of soap for washing dishes. In this way, they can be sure that there is no inadvertent mixing, however small, of meat and milk. Pareve foods can be cooked and eaten on either meat or dairy plates and utensils.
Although observant Jews consider fish to be pareve, it is not mixed with meat or poultry. This is another example of how sometimes enigmatic biblical injunctions were elaborated by later rabbis. The admonition to "verily guard your souls" was interpreted by Talmudic scholars to mean that you should closely guard your health, and therefore fish and meat should not be consumed together because you might not be scrupulous in looking for fish bones when eating the latter and therefore might choke on one.
Foods that are prohibited by the laws of kashrut are called trayf and will never be found in food products that have been certified as kosher.
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Excerpted from Kosher for Everybody by Trudy Garfunkel Excerpted by permission.
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