Jewish Congregations of America and
the Chaf-K and the Star K of the local
Vaad Hakashrus and the plain old K.
The trouble is that each group has dif-
ferent standards, and to the average
consumer, who simply wants to know
whether a product is kosher or not, it's
difficult to keep track. Part of this con-
fusion is the price we pay for more
prevalent and more sophisticated cer-
tification. So many more products are
available to kosher consumers these
days.
And there are more kosher
restaurants in major cities around the

country. Sometimes they are just hole-
in-the-wall pizza shops but New York,
Los Angeles and Miami offer a variety
of elegant kosher dining establishments.
More than a few kosher-keeping
Baltimoreans have been known to drive
up to New York on a Saturday night
in the winter to pig-out (you should ex-
cuse the expression) at Shmulke Berns-
tein's Chinese-kosher cuisine on the
Lower East Side and then head home,
eyes bleary but bellies full.
Indeed, just about anyone who keeps
kosher can offer an amusing story
about the challenges of such a lifestyle,

whether it's the frustration of ordering
a kosher meal aboard a plane and hav-
ing it served frozen solid or the embar-
rassment of trying to explain to non-
Jewish friends or business associates the
limitations of dining together.
Or there's my friend Morty in New
York, who opted not to explain.
Some years ago he was trying to close
a major deal with several Japanese
businessmen. They insisted on taking
him to lunch at a fancy Japanese
restaurant in Manhattan. Morty
resisted. They persisted to the point
where he thought he was hurting their

pride. Worried about losing the deal,
Morty relented and soon found himself
seated on the floor of a dark, tradi-
tional Japanese restaurant, chopsticks in
hand, his hosts eagerly advising him
about the splendid choices on the
menu, none of which were remotely
kosher. They insisted on ordering for
him and when the steaming hot dish
arrived, Morty, desperate now, started
quietly dropping bits of food from his
chopsticks onto the floor. It was dark
and no one seemed to notice and he
ended up dumping his whole meal at
his feet.

Kishka Or Tofu!

JANIS POLT FINK

Special to The Jewish News

W

hen the great patriarch
Abraham said, "Let all
who are hungry enter:' did
Sarah have to contend
with delicate colons, counting calories
and checkout counters?
An arduous task, food shopping has
consumed a large percentage of my life
for the past 15 years. It seems to get
more difficult as diet, religion, health
and personal preferences converge into
a cacophony of culinary messages that
render me more and more helpless.
For many years I just bought, shlep-
ped and prepared our daily sustenance.
I went to sleep secure that my family
had survived another day of enough
doses of the Recommended Daily
Allowances. But with the advent of fad
diets, protein units, lactose intolerances,
macrobiotic cooking, saltless, sugarless,
meatless and cholesterol-free hype —
combined with a kosher kitchen--serious
complications have set in.
First my husband declared "our"
abstention from beef. I became a wizard
at concocting pastas, veggies and fish
(of course, I sneaked the kids to fast
food chains for their red meat fix, and I
confess I still miss a good brisket).
When one child rejected egg yolks
and the other swore off egg whites,
presto! Mama-the-magician split the eggs
in half. When my husband banished
preservatives, additives and other harm-
ful ingredients from our kitchen
kingdom, I managed to sneak-smear the
kids' whole wheat bread with natural

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peanut butter, rather than the beloved
name brands, while the children were
getting dressed in the morning.
Cable Health Network entered our
lives and my spouse converted our
home into a Far Eastern shrine. On
Rosh Hashonah, I replaced kishka with
tofu (soybean curd) and chicken broth
with miso soup (from fermented bean
paste). I stored tamari (naturally
fermented soy sauce) in my pantry and
tahini (sesame seed puree) in my
refrigerator.
My guilt mounted over the artificial
sweeteners for my coffee, the MSG in
my Chinese food. I passed up flour
with bleach; canned soups with excess
salt, cucumbers with wax, any product
with red dye, ice cream with high fat
content, cereals with less nutrition than
their cardboard boxes, and — of course
— no shellfish, pork or products with
lard. After all, we're still observant at
home.
"No problem," said my husband when
he recognized my mounting anxiety.
"We'll get a microwave oven so we can
each do our own thing."
When will I be able to look at that
black box in my kitchen without worry-
ing that my precious ones may get
zapped?
And is it any wonder I spend most of
my time in the grocery store wandering
from aisle to aisle and hoping that
some Higher Authority will reveal my
week's menu to me. It's certainly no
surprise to me that so many people suf-
fer from agoraphobia: fear of the
marketplace.

Friday, September 26, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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