I want to bring up a question I have been asked and thought about a lot. How can I really be interested in food, but still keep kosher. At the cost of sounding like I'm rationalizing being kosher, I'd like to venture an answer.
First of all, let me outline the restrictions which being kosher imposed upon me food wise.
1. Ingredients: I can not cook with any pig ingredients, nor can I cook with any seafood ( lobster, crab, scallops, clams, oysters, ect). I can only cook explicitly kosher meat, and even then I can not mix it with dairy ingredients. In general I try to only buy things with kosher marks on it (though this I sometimes disregard).
2. Restaurants/Friend dinners: When I eat out I only eat fish and vegetarian. For instance, today I went to the Jets football game (J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets ---- nb. I'm more of a Giants fan) and was surrounded by amazing looking tailgating meats. I eat carrots and celery, and a rather ill-made bagel and lox sandwich from a kosher breakfast place (B&H breakfast on 2nd sucks --- they don't have good bagels and don't know how to make a lox sandwich). My restrictions also keep me from eating lots of interesting ethnic foods, street foods, and great foods my friends make.
3. Equipment: In my kitchen I have two separate sets of dishes and pots and pans and utensils. If I want to have a meat meal, I can only use my meat tools, and likewise for dairy. This is actually difficult because of the limited space in my kitchen, plus since I don't cook too much meat, I don't have nearly the same options of cookware as I have with dairy. Also, this can be tough with non-kosher roommates since I need to ask them not to use any of my stuff, and also I need to be careful about them washing their dishes with my stuff in the sink. Luckily this has always worked well for me.
Ok, so I may have left some stuff out, but as you see, its pretty restrictive being kosher. I should mention one aspect which I do not follow is that I freely drink unkosher wine (the kosher stuff really sucks).
So, why would I impose all of these restrictions upon myself, and how does it not significantly detract my from ability to appreciate food? The why is relatively simple: I grew up kosher, its comfortable, and its part of my way of following Judaism. As to the second part of the question, I believe that by restricting myself I do lose out on many culinary experiences. However I think that there is worth in limits.
Lets see if I can articulate this idea. I will never taste bacon, nor will I ever have crab or scallops or street-meat. From what I have heard, these foods have exceedingly great flavor. To me this creates a challenge --- how can I attain the same level of flavor and enjoyment from food, without resorting to eating these items. It becomes something worthy of a quest. I imagine that if I ate bacon, and it really did live up to my expectations, then it might all be spoiled. I would have reached culinary nirvana and would have no where more to go.
This quasi-argument is, of course, dependent on my having been kosher for quite a while. If you didn't grow up kosher, I don't suggest you start. But given my history, being kosher and limited in my cuisine has certainly driven me towards culinary exploration.
Hmm.. maybe I need to think more about this. Thoughts?
7 comments:
As a opart of Royakl Wine Corp America's largest importer and producer of kosher wines I find your comment puzzling.
You must be drinking the wrong stuff (Manischewitz)
Many of our wines (from over 11 countries (all kosher) are recognized as being in the elite category In fact Robert Parker recently scored 15 Israeli ines over "90" and Wine spectator have raised their scores on many kosher wines. As Wine advocate quoted..kosher is irrelevant when judging the quality of the wine..We agreee
Best
Martin
I totally think it's possible to be a foodie and keep kosher. Being a foodie means you appreciate fine food, have a refined palate and will seek out the finest ingredients possible. Being a foodie does not mean you have to eat everything... you are allowed to be a "Picky" eater. Some may describe that as "discerning."
There's an interesting discussion of it here: http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php?title=how_to_become_for_lack_of_a_better_word_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Hi Martin,
Thanks for posting. I disagree. I think Manischewitz is great --- I've seen people tricked in trying to determine whether its sweet kosher wine, or excellent port.
I do admit that I have not explored kosher wine to a great extent. The price is certainly an issue, as is the access. When I got to Trader Joes, or other wine shops near me, they tend to have very limited selection. I would love to learn more about quality kosher wine.
If you're going to be a kosher foodie, then I think it's admirable to be truly kosher--as opposed to all of those kosher-style establishments, heavy on the schmaltz but happy to use bacon or crab or whatever. Of course, you draw your somewhat arbitrary lines, too (like with wine). But maybe the point is that with cooking, as all else, we work within our own sense of possibility, in part defined by who we are, where we come from.
Was just looking for a split pea soup recipe in one of my cookbooks. In a note before her recipe, the author admitted that she hates split pea soup, but felt obligated to include it, so, well, here's the recipe. Who would ever make that recipe? Seems to me she could have simply skipped it. There are enough places where one can learn about preparing food and hear people talk about food, that there's no reason that one person has to cover the gamut.
The only stumbling block is that being kosher certainly limits your experience with food, especially when traveling. I don't think there's a good way of getting around this. And since food is such a central way of getting to know another culture--and being welcomed by people--it can be constraining to beg off trying local cuisine. Perhaps you can build different kinds of bridges by talking about why you won't eat the food, but this sort of pedantic thing only goes so far.
That wasn't me (sister-in-law Julia) who commented above. I'll leave this to the professionals. However, I will say that I really wonder *who* tricked someone into thinking Manischewitz was excellent port...
dude... and I like to think I hung out with you a good amount and I totally didn't know you were keeping Kosher :P
Just a "I know how you feel" shoutout from another kosher foodie. Miami is actually one of the worst places to be one of our kind, so I have that to contend with as well. I'm looking to do something about it. I'm bookmarking this for future reference.
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