ANNABEL COHEN Special to the Jewish News

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ews are reverent with food. Certainly,
it's more than a matter of nutrition and
food safety. For Jews, eating is literally a
religious experience. It's another way
we define culture, tradition and celebration.
And it's always there, with laws unflinching.
Some may consider the laws of kashrut
old-fashioned, obsolete. Yet the act of keeping
kosher is religious, not merely dietary so it's
another way of showing devotion and control
over one's life.
Making your kitchen kosher isn't limiting
or particularly challenging.
Though certain foods may not be
consumed — animals without cloven hooves,
those that do not chew their cud, shellfish,
certain cuts of meat — kashrut can be an a
true exercise in innovation and imagination.
Indeed clever cooks can use substitution to
transform the most unusual ethnic or treif
(not kosher — literally "torn") food into a fit
meal.

GETTING STARTED

The rules of kashrut can be daunting to the
uninitiated. What to combine? What to eat
when? Foods categorically forbidden? Yet
keeping and cooking kosher becomes second

30 • SOURCEBOOK

2002 • JN

nature quickly as you learn by doing.
At its core, the art of keeping kosher
is pure simplicity:
• All vegetables are kosher.
• Buy only from a kosher butcher and you
won't worry about kosher cuts of meat.
• Fish without scales and fins and shellfish of
any kind are not kosher.
• Don't eat milk and meat at the same meal.
• Use only prepared products with a kosher
designation.
If you do nothing else, you are well on
your way to a kosher home.
As with all art, however, intricacies and
nuance make observing the laws the subject of
a lifetime of learning for many. For more
intricate study, there are tomes outlining every
distinction.

KASHRUT FOR DUMMIES

Here are the basic rules of kashrut. If you've
never kept kosher before, this is a good place to
start. First learn what's allowable and what's not.

MEAT, FISH AND FOWL
(FLEISHIG)

• Not all animals are permissible for eating.
• Not every part of kosher animals is permitted.
• Scavengers and birds of prey are not

fitted.
must be killed in accordance with
Jewish law.
• All blood must be drained or cooked out of
meat before consumption.
• Dairy must not be eaten with meat or fowl.
• Dairy may be eaten with fish.
• Fish must have fins and scales.
• Utensils used in cooking meat, may not be
used in cooking fish.
• Depending on your belief, fish and meat
should not be combined.
• Rodents, reptiles and insects are not kosher.

NON-MEAT
(MILCHIG AND PAREVE)

• Dairy foods that contain rennet (used to
harden cheese) from non-kosher animals is
forbidden.
• Prepared foods must have accepted kosher
designation.
• All vegetables may be eaten with dairy or
meat.
• Grape products, such as wine, made by non-
Jews are not permissible.
• All vegetables are consideredpareve
(neutral).
The novice may not need to know what
makes a slaughtered animal kosher, though