Spring, 1991
DePaul School for New Learning
Foundations of New Learning
Teacher: Catherine Marienau
Jewish Culinary Culture
Food is more than just nutrition; it is very meaningful to humans. Our social life frequently revolves around food, singles find meeting each other easier when food is involved, and even business meetings revolve around food. We talk while cooking together, we share it with guests as a way to bid them welcome, we make gifts of food to one another, and we use food as a means of expressing our creativity.
Sharing food is a universal peace-promoting gesture. Even without speaking a person’s language, you can tell them that you mean them no harm by offering food – it’s a good peace offering.
Since eating is shared by us all it could easily be a good place to start learning about each other and thus reducing fear of the unknown. Because of current events in the Middle East, I decided to learn about Jewish values through their numerous dietary practices.
We have very strong emotional attachments to the food that we grew up believing was good for us; these beliefs are difficult to change. I am going to share with you some basics cultural aspects of Jewish cooking. I hope to answer questions like: what does kosher mean? Why do Jews have so many dietary rules and what do they mean? Jewish dietary laws are very complicated and have their origins in the Garden of Eden, with the forbidden fruit. I will attempt to briefly summarize these rules and the accompanying cultural values they express.
Kosher means “fit to eat”; the system of determining such fitness is called kashrut; this system falls into 3 main parts: allowable and forbidden foods, the preparation of meat, and the separation of milk and meat. Treyf is a food that is not kosher. Pareve foods are those considered neutral and OK to eat with either meat or milk.
All fruits, cereal, and vegetables may be eaten according to a biblical statement. They must be examined and cleaned to make sure they are free from insects, however.
They may eat animals that chew their cud and have cloven hooves; all others are forbidden. Kosher meat comes form the forequarter and organs of beef, veal, or lamb. Any meat or poultry must be killed by a shohet (ritual slaughterer). A limb torn or cut from a living animal is forbidden along with an animal that dies by itself and not from slaughter. Traditions of ritualistic slaughtering (called shehitah), date back over 3 thousand years to meat sacrificed at the Tabernacle in Jerusalem. The rules of slaughter come from ethical ideals which are designed to reject the sacrificial practices of paganism. The method of slaughter is prescribed by tradition and attempts doing so in the fastest, most humane way possible. After proper slaughter, the shohet examines the animal to be sure that it was healthy and thus fit to eat. They are not allowed to eat an animal that has died of natural causes or that has a disease.
The Bible has a list of allowable birds and fowl: chicken, duck, goose, and turkey are OK. All birds of prey are forbidden. Eggs are OK as long as there is no blood inside it.
Jews never eat foods with milk and foods with meat at the same meal; they even use a different set of dishes to serve milk and meat dishes; they use separate cleansing methods for the utensils also. They are even required to rinse their mouth and wait certain periods of time between milk and meat dishes. The historical basis of this prohibition prevented the ancient Hebrews from pagan customs of animal sacrifice; it is related in, “Thou shall not seeth a kid in its mother’s milk” (Deuteronomy 14:20). It was also a way of aiding digestion.
Jews were also taught, not to sacrifice a kid and its mother together (Leviticus 22:28) and not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19). Although dead goats are not affected by these rules, they do affect people in that they attempt to promote humans to be concerned about the suffering of other creatures; they do NOT reinforce brutality.
Fish has always been a mainstay of the Jewish diet. Only fish with scales and fins may be eaten. Caviar, eel, shark, and shellfish are forbidden. Reptiles including “crawling things” are forbidden. They eat lox (which is smoked salmon), smoked whitefish, and pickled herring as a protein with their daily meals, frequently served on bagels. Whitefish, pike, and carp are combined to create gefilte fish (stuffed fish) which is served as an appetizer. Friday evening meals frequently include Shabbot which includes chicken soup and a main dish made with chicken. Chicken is considered a staple in their diets.
To the Jews eating fish symbolizes the hope of redemption for Israel and reminds them of the mercies of God. In Genesis, God blessed man and fish several times, creating a mystical triad; he urged them to “be fruitful and multiply”, and from this, fish came to represent fertility and immortality.
In folk tradition, a woman who ate a fish that was inside another fish would become pregnant. For some, the 7th day of the wedding feast is a “fish day”, when the groom sends the bride a plate of fish, she steps over a fishnet and symbolically becomes pregnant. To this day North American Jewish women wear fish amulets around their necks with the hope of becoming pregnant.
The Jewish bible absolutely forbids the ingestion of blood; this stems from the Israelites wanting to go against the pagan practice of drinking blood. To Jews, blood is a sacred gift from God and a means of atonement. To extract blood from the meat they use salting or broiling.
To Jews a meal is not a meal without bread; the Sabbath is an occasion for their favorite hallah, which is a sweet egg bread. Their bible calls for the first of the dough to be given to the Lord and a portion for a gift throughout the generations. Even modern Jewish families, who don’t practice a lot of the dietary rules, still cling to the Sabbath for rest and family togetherness. (Not a bad idea).
The Bible is fairly clear in explaining why the Jews have been ordered to live with these strict dietary rules. “You shall be holy unto Me, therefore, you shall not eat……” and “I have set you apart from peoples that you shall be Mine.” These special rules are to set the Jews apart from others and enable them to serve as “a light unto the nations.” And to transmit the message to all mankind. The Rabbis of the Talmudic era were without doubt about the purpose of the kashrut; it was to refine man by disciplining his basic appetites. In other words, God doesn’t really care, for instance, how you kill an animal, but the laws are for the refinement of the man himself.
In the later ages, more practical reasons for the laws were presented, hygienic reasons: pigs were too dirty to eat, because of their scavenger-like eating habits, and shellfish were considered contaminated because they breed best in polluted water. There are some discrepancies in the laws: although horses are seen as clean animals, they are forbidden. These dietary laws are still valid today, mostly because of the old biblical reasons: to set the people apart, to allow them to better fulfill their role as interpreters and teachers of God’s law. The rules were developed for man to discipline his appetites above the level of the animal world and as constant reminders of his higher plane of existence.
The history of Jewish dietary rules dates back to ancient Palestine and has served as a means to differentiate Jews from others. Back then, mere planting or harvesting of the first grain, or finding an animal large enough to feed the group was the reason for celebrating. Fear, giving thanks or regret past sins caused them to offer sacrifices to God. There were strict laws regarding these sacrifices too. To the Jews, the ceremonial rites surrounding their foods had great meaning to them; these rites served to express the relationship between God and nature, in addition to the relationship between the Levi (priests) and the Jewish people. It is clear that foods have deep symbolic meanings to the Jews.
It’s not unusual to hear of a religion having special days when they have either feasts or fasts, but the Jews use an entire written code of dietary laws that address everything on their dinner table. Many theories have been proposed in an attempt to explain the rules in the Torah. The faithful, however, think that commandments from God do not need a reason.
Anthropologists have long discussed the Jewish dietary laws, especially the exclusion the shellfish and pork. Mary Douglas, an anthropologist from Britain, thinks that some animals were simply arbitrarily forbidden, to reinforce the exclusivity of Jews. Moses forbade the most delicious meats. The laws forbade all animals of land, sea, or air whose flesh was the tastiest; the goal was to prevent gluttony.
Columbia University anthropologist, Marvin Harris, says that the Jews excluded pigs for economic reasons. He claims that rabbis forbade pigs because in the ancient Middle East the Jews could not maintain the pigs in the hot desert, no matter how good their taste was.
Jews view their home tables as God’s alters since in history their Temple was destroyed. Salt has meaning at their tables: the purity of God and the Temple, it wards off evil spirits, serves as a symbol of permanence, a good omen, and was even sprinkled on newborn babies for good luck. Salt is required on the table before each meal; salt is evenly spread on bread after the blessing. Much of Jewish life centers around food; these specific rules for the dinner table serve to remind the Jew of his separateness and his oneness with God.
The Sabbath is their day of rest and falls on Saturday; rest includes not cooking. As a result, an entire cuisine was created so that could be cooked in advance. No fire could be kindled on the Sabbath, so they would make dishes that could be started on Friday evening, finishing as the embers die out.
I have a friend who is Jewish. He has made dinner for me numerous times. Most of his dishes are boiled and used chicken as a protein source. For bread, he serves Matzo made from boiled dough shaped like a donut or bagel. He says that his mother boiled meat, not because of any dietary rules, but because she hated to clean the pans after frying. He says the rabbis made all the fancy rules just to have power over the people and to occupy their minds so they would keep out of trouble. Please keep in mind, however, that this is a Jewish man who eats bacon!
I loved the essay done by Max Apple in Esquire magazine (Feb 1984). He made me realize how difficult it would be to be a Jew today and try to follow kashrut. Imagine having to ask a waiter, “Do you have a kosher table? Do you separate your milk and meat products? Do you stay away from shellfish? Are your animals ritually slaughtered? “
Max says the most prevalent type of Jew today is what he calls the, “at-home kosher.” This is a kashrut they design themselves to fit in today’s society; they just follow the rules at home. It is an attempt to cling to ancient culture, but at the same time not interfere with modern life. To them kosher is a cultural symbol, not a taboo, and a choice rather than an obligation.
Max says that he realizes that he could eat a cold pork sandwich, in a synagogue, on Yom Kippur, and live happily ever after. He knows these rules don’t make sense in our modern world. He knows that it is a pain in the neck trying to find the right food and especially a pain to explain to others what he will and won’t eat.
However, when even your breast milk was kosher and the dietary prohibitions are deeply rooted in your identity, you accept fully that your culture’s aesthetics and ethics are wrapped up in these rules. He says he can put up with it all because, after all, there are no “kosher thoughts” – he is still free to think.
Jews who follow these strict dietary rules are showing strong religious faith. Symbolically, if any group of people followed other biblical teachings like, “Love your neighbor as yourself…..” (Leviticus 19:18) then the world would certainly be all the better.
Bibliography
Nathan, Joan. The Jewish Holiday Kitchen.
Gubbay, Lucien & Levy, Abraham. The Jewish Book of Why And What.
Sokolov, Raymond. The Jewish-American Kitchen.
Newtol Press. (1985, Feb). Commentary Section. “Kosher Ecology.”
Apple, Max. Esquire. (1984, Feb). “The Stranger At The Table.”