There is a big difference between not eating pork or shellfish and keeping kosher. At least that is what my late Bubbe (grandmother) would have told you and what a number of my observant cousins would think.
Let’s see, complying and I mean fully complying with Kashrut is more than avoiding lobster and bacon.
You do not mix meat and dairy at the same meal, no cheeseburgers, no omelets with salami and cheese, no veal parmigiano, no cheese on the spaghetti bolognese.
You segregate meat and dairy in the refrigerator,
You use two separate sets of dishes, pots, pans and cutlery for meat meals and dairy meals. Should you use a milk fork when you were cooking beef tacos, you stick the fork in a plant in your kitchen for eight days to kosher it.
You ingest meat only from animals that are ruminants and have a cloven hoof. That rules out swine, horses, canines and camels. But there was a newspaper article last week that had a rabbinical ruling that a giraffe would be kosher. I don’t recall why this particular question came up but it did.
Kosher meat is ritually slaughtered, a knife must have no nicks or burrs and should not cause any pain. Most of the blood is drained at the time of slaughter and many butchers will salt the meat to leach out any remaining blood and then soak it to remove the salt.
You can not eat beef from the section that touches the sciatic nerve of the bovine (don’t ask me why I don’t know),
Sea animals must have scales which precludes eating shellfish but also shark. It keeps us from eating sea animals that are scavengers like crab and lobster.
I could go on and on but that is about 5% of the rules.
If you evangelical friends are this observant then they might consider themselves to be on the road to Kashrut.
)
| asked June 11th, 2008
| 6 responses
| 
Topics:
Composing members:
0
