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Main Reviews Foreword Introduction About Kosher Cooking Selected Recipes
About Kosher Cooking
Basic Guidelines of Kashrut
Kashrut (keeping kosher) for many people is an intrinsic part of their daily living. It is not just a practice which our mothers and/or grandmothers followed, but it is a natural part of our lives today.
Keeping kosher is adhering to a commandment given to us by G-d. Kashrut is a matter of discipline which we impose upon ourselves so that we have an intimate connection to following a precept connected to our daily needs.
Open the Torah to Leviticus 11 and you can read all that one may eat and what one may not eat. The reason is clearly stated also -- "For I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your G-d; ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." Elaborations on which foods are fit are in other chapters, particularly Deuteronomy 14, as well as the Talmud and codes of Jewish law.
For those keeping kosher, foods are divided into three categories. These designations -- meat, dairy and pareve -- are also used on all of the recipes in this cookbook.
Meat
Meat (basahr in Hebrew, fleishig in Yiddish) consists of all meat, fowl and their byproducts. The book of Leviticus 11 explains the precise animals that one may eat and the rules. Basically, kosher meat must come from an animal that chews its cud and has split hooves. Cows, sheep and goats fall into this category. The most common fowl which are kosher are domesticated chickens, Cornish hens, turkeys, ducks and geese.
All of these animals must be slaughtered by a shochet, a ritual slaughterer, who is trained in kosher slaughtering.
Today, it is fairly easy to purchase meat and fowl from a reputable kosher butcher which have already been kashered and thus this eliminates the time-consuming job which our9 foremothers had to soak and salt meat after slaughter.
Dairy
Any food which comes from milk is considered dairy (chalavi in Hebrew, milchig in Yiddish). Milk, butter, yogurt, dairy margarine, sour cream and cheeses are dairy. Dairy products must also come from a kosher animal and contain no non-kosher additives. A product which has the words caseinate, lactose or whey is a product which is dairy.
Pareve
Pareve foods are those which are neither meat nor dairy and contain neither meat nor dairy derivatives. Fruit, vegetables, eggs, juices, fish, grains coffee, tea, soft drinks and pasta are among the foods which are pareve.
Kosher fish are those which have fins and scales. Among the kosher fish are anchovies, bass, carp, cod, flounder, grouper, haddock, hake, halibut, herring, mackerel, perch, pike, red snapper, salmon, sardines, St. Peter's fish (tilapia), trout, tuna, and whitefish. Fish roe from a kosher fish is also kosher. Swordfish and sturgeon have fins and scales but they fall off so Orthodox do not eat them and Conservative do.
Cheese made with rennet, an extract of the enzyme renin, are not considered kosher by Orthodox. Conservative no longer consider processed rennet an animal product.
Some products bear "non-dairy" in their names but unless the word "pareve" is written on the label accompanied by the O in a circle or other reputable kosher symbols, these products may not be totally without dairy derivatives.
How Do We Know It's Kosher?
Companies which produce processed foods usually have a rabbi on staff or readily available to act as overseer to make sure the foods are kosher. Many foods in, today's supermarkets carry a D or P next to a symbol which means Dairy or Pareve although "P" can denote "kosher for Passover" as well. If a food is kosher for Passover, that is usually labeled as such. More than 130 symbols are used to mark products that are kosher, but the five most widely accepted ones are:
U Inside a circle which means certified by the Union of Orthodox Congregations.
K Inside a circle which means certified by Organized Kashrut Laboratories of Brooklyn, New York.
The Hebrew letter Kuf with a K inside which means certified by Kosher Supervision Service of Teaneck, New Jersey.
A five-sided star with a K in the center which means certified by the Orthodox Jewish Council of Baltimore, Maryland.
A triangle with a K in the center which means certified by Rabbi Joseph Ralbag of New York City, New York.
Many manufacturers also use a plain K. This generally means the supervision of the production of that product is by a rabbi and is as reputable as that rabbi.
What Goes With What?
Meant and dairy foods are not cooked or eaten together. ("Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk," Exodus 23:19). Traditions vary on how long one must wait, but in general, one must wait some brief time after eating dairy before eating meat. When one eats meat, one must generally wait anywhere from three to six hours before eating dairy.
Setting Up the Kitchen
In order to have a kosher kitchen with the least amount of problems, it is recommended that one have separate cabinets for dairy dishes, silverware, cooking and bakeware and another set of cabinets for meat dishes, silverware, cooking and bakeware.
Drinking glasses and salad plates can be used for dairy meals and meat meals but it is necessary to wash them thoroughly after each use.
One may also want pareve cookware and bakeware.
In addition to these, one uses separate salt and pepper shakers, bread baskets or trays, dish racks, sponges, scouring pads, towels and tablecloths. Most people use some readily identifiable color code such as white or beige or sometimes blue for dairy and brown or red for meat.
Some people also mark on the inside of a drawer or cabinet whether the items contained therein are dairy or meat or pareve. If something is similar, such as knives or wooden spoons, one can mark those for meat with red nail polish on the end.
All of the above also applies to Passover when separate meat and dairy dishes, silverware, cookware and bakeware and drinking glasses must be used that are not used the rest of the year.
In the Kitchen
When one has two sinks, one can be designated dairy and one meat. If one has only one sink, then food and dishes must be put on meat or dairy racks and not in the sink directly. Separate categories of place mats or tablecloths should be set aside for use with meat or dairy. Color coding is easy for this also (e.g., light colors for dairy and dark colors for meat). Countertops can be set aside, one for dairy and one for meat, or a covering used for each.
Separate areas should be set aside in a freezer and refrigerator for meat and dairy.
Some people use the oven and broiler of a stove for meat and a separate toaster-oven broiler for dairy to avoid mixing. If the oven will be used for both dairy and meat, then foil can be placed under the pans for each use. Small appliances can be used for dairy and meat as long as separate attachments are used and there is a good cleaning after each use.
There are many intricacies to keeping kosher which cannot be elaborated upon here so, when in doubt, if you have a question, always consult your local rabbi.
Special thanks to Rabbi Herbert J. Mandl, my rabbi at Kehilath Israel Synagogue in Overland Park, Kansas, for looking over this article.
Sybil Kaplan
ISBN 1-877749-19-2
$ 18.00
Published by Five Star Publications, Inc.
lay-flat binding
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