Even though I grew up in a mostly Jewish neighborhood, played with Jewish kids I don't recall eating a Kosher meal. I am now reading a bit about Kosher foods and there preparation. I want to know more about the religious origin of Kosher.
@Lon Tanner ..I worked for a Jewish restaurant owner. Kosher is cooking dairy and meat seperate and not lettying these items touch. Anyways he was very picky..but we served the best dang kosker chili and bagels and cheesecake in all of Missouri..I lived there for a bit.
if you mean do you eat Jewish food...yep I do...I love Gefilte fish balls, and I have to be careful because I would eat them non-stop if I could and they're really fattening, so I rarely buy it.. I have salt beef at least twice a month, and I really like Matzo ball soup..... but Bagels? I hate..can't stand them. In my local market town we don't have any Jewish deli's so I have to drive into the Jewish areas in London, to buy favourite foods...
Eat "kosher"? Sure, I guess I do, but not on purpose at any rate. Certainly not entire kosher meals, since our kitchen was always, and still is, filled with Slavic foods mainly, not Jewish. One of these days, I'm aiming to try some Borscht, as it's sold at our big Kroger Store. A bowl of borscht garnished with dill and a dollop of smetana (sour cream)
Actually @Holly Saunders ..it was. Jewish Deli.We had chocolate grasshoppers, tigers milk numerous other things no one from Texas would eat. It was so popular people would stand in pouring rain to get in. Women in furs being chaffered in their Rolls Royce. However his wife was beyond the B word to deal with.I should have known something was up when I found out I was the 20th waitress to be hired that year..it was August! We were not to speak to each other. Hard to belive but true. He would not allow us to speak to each other even on our lunch break.We made everything from scratch everyday and he would make me pour out coffee and make fresh- if it sat on burner more than 30 mintues.
Re: On the Borscht: I thought that was kosher, but my wife says NO. Sorry. Off-thread babbling. Frank
I used to make matzo ball soup for my grandson. One of my favorite sandwiches is corned beef on rye with baby swiss.
I knew it was Ukrainian /Eastern European.... but I just accepted that you knew it was originally Jewish....
I'll eat anything that's put in front of me. I don't strictly speaking eat Kosher but I do enjoy a lot of Jewish foods.
Yeah, I know the understood meaning of Kosher as it is being applied here, but in all actuality, Kosher is simply food that is prepared according to Jewish law. Other than the foods that cannot be eaten by the same law, the rest is prepared so as to not give way to any unhealthy practices. Thousands of years before the FDA or the USDA were founded, the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy included strict instructions directly concerning healthy eating habits and those things that are even to this day are strictly forbidden for people to eat. Example: 1.Anything that is approved to eat must first be prepared in such a way as to not have any blood left in it in order to be deemed clean. 2. Even though it seems like a recent thing with the discovery of bacteria as it relates to food poisoning, the knowledge of cross contamination between proteins and vegetables and proteins with different proteins was a reality some 4000 years ago. It was a no-no then, it’s a no-no now. Kosher is clean and healthy eating which my wife and I do because we do not wish to be sick. Do give us the credit though for straying a little whilst we dine with a nice rare to mid-rare piece of beef. Now, do we eat foods and recipes that are normally considered to be found on a Jewish table? Other than Kosher dills, not so much.
The word "kosher" literally means "fit" or "appropriate." https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/kosher-food/ Not only must meat and dairy be separated, but even the dishes and cookware must be kept separated. Animals must be slaughtered in a certain, humane way. Certain animals and sea creatures may not be eaten, such as "bottom feeders" like catfish, lobsters, shrimps, etc; birds of prey, rabbit and pig. I don't know about rabbit or birds of prey, but before refrigeration shellfish spoiled rapidly and up until recently, pork carried trichinosis; all deadly. I read somewhere that at least one of the reasons not to mix meat with milk is because it's considered cruel and disrespectful to the animal to have to be cooked in it's own mother's milk; milk that was meant to sustain it's life. I'm not sure as to the truth of this. It's really a fascinating subject. I saw a video on baking unleavened bread. Since yeast spores can form in the air of a bakery, the ovens have to be stopped and no more work can resumed until a certain amount of time has passed. From https://www.thespruceeats.com/introduction-to-kosher-food-2122519 (very interesting site) Demystifying Kosher Food Keep in mind that kosher is not a style of cooking. All foods -Italian, Chinese, French, etc.- can be kosher if prepared in accordance with Jewish law. Simply because a dish is associated with Jewish foods -knishes, bagels, blintzes and matzoh ball soup- does not mean it is kosher if not prepared in accordance with kosher law. Arabs, who are a Semitic people like Jews are, also have very similar dietary laws but call it halal, rather than kosher. Halal foods are sold in supermarkets here. Sorry to be so wordy, but I enjoy the subject.
Kosher can mean a variety of things. How the meat was killed, how it is stored and what it is mixed with....etc. Mixing meat with milk, such as breading chicken, brings out the gas in the meat. Also, if someone is in the kosher business or runs a kosher restaurant, it has the be blessed by a special Food Rabbi. A real kosher kitchen can require two fridges, two dishwashers....etc. The variety of this depends on how what 'group' of Jews a person identifies with. It is as varied as the various Christian denominations. The original dietary laws given by God came with lots of other laws such as how to deal with human waste and keeping water sources clean. The laws were not 'religious' in nature, they were to keep the people healthy. Then, as orthodox Jews are prone to, it all went to far and a gazillion laws became part of the heritage. My mom is Jewish, but my Dad is not. Therefore, we had lots of Jewish meals, but not full on kosher. The first time I ate pizza, I was on a date. I ate so much I got nauseated and thought it was God's punishment for eating pork. As an adult, I do eat pork, but I never ever put my meat and milk on the same shelf in the fridge.