KOSHER Cooking

[echoes]

Did a search button on this topic, but came up with nil...

This past five days was a Kosher cooking experience for me, for the first time. We have had 1000 people to serve for a conference, and everything is seperate: Meat, Produce, and Parv.

Have learned a ton about the cooking methods and restictions. Was curious if anyone else has ever Kosher cooked, and what they think about its relevance in today's soceity?

Holly...

P.S. We also cooked with a world renowed team brought in to help us. What Restaurant would they be from?

Holly

[Penn]

Echoes, with all due respect, what was the point of the post? That you cook, that you cook Kosher, that you cooked kosher with a team from kosher city USA? Personally, in my view, the post was not representative of this board.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Penn

Echoes, with all due respect, what was the point of the post? That you cook, that you cook Kosher, that you cooked kosher with a team from kosher city USA? Personally, in my view, the post was not representative of this board.

Penn,

With all due respect to you, my post was made out of simple curiosity. In no way was it an attempt to demean this board or any of its members.

Was hoping to dialouge with anyone who might have done it a time or two, as my knowledge was greatly increased in this particular area, and it seemed worthy of posting because there are several refferences to its preperation that date back to a time in the worlds soceity that has long since passed away, and honestly, I was just curious.

This is Your house here, and in no way was I attempting to derail or diminish the Gourmet Area.

Holly

[HOLLiS]

I had a friend who certified Kosher restaurants. There is a lot more to Kosker than the what food you are using, if you are going to advertise Kosher. Best is to ask a Orthodox Rabbi.

For Reformed, the humor is, it does not matter. If they are conservative or orthodox, then it is important.

My apology to the forum. Please delete.

[Penn]

I'll restate for clarity. If you are going to post, particularly with reference to a specific enthnic cusisine you need to example it's process, stlye, purpose; something other than what you did last week wondering what planet you're on.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Penn

I'll restate for clarity. If you are going to post, particularly with reference to a specific enthnic cusisine you need to example it's process, stlye, purpose; something other than what you did last week wondering what planet you're on.

Penn,

My knowledge of Kosher cooking was greatly influenced by the team of very strict Rabbi's visiting from the northwest. And as I am always learning, it facinated me to learn all of these different and unique customs from another time and place.

The process was simple:

The kitchen is seperated into three areas, one for meat, one for produce, one for baked goods, including eggs.

The style was unique:

Three colors were established, Red-Meat, Blue-Produce, Yellow-Bakery/Parv.

The purpose was clear:

Every creation of every dish must not cross contaminate. Each area had its own dishwashing station/storage area. And each station was forbidden from using any of the others knives, utensils, pots, pans, stoves, coolers, kettles etc...

Actually, it was a very impressive list of rules and regulations that were followed to a T. Then capitalized.

It was unique for me, a very new person into the world of cooking for the public, and as stated, I learned a ton of things that had not ever crossed my small path in liife.

Hope this helps to explain my post.

Holly

[Penn]

Echoes, My apologies, I have read you first and last post. You were seeking dialogue in the first, and explained your experience in the second. Both were nicely done, I misread the first post, hence my remarks.

[HOLLiS]

If you wish to augment you knowledge on Kashut, there are a number of sites that will help you. Aish.com is a good one.

A statistic that I read sometimes back, there are a lot of people how look to kosher as a healthy way of eating and who are not Jewish. Probably over 100% more who are Gentiles.

A hobby of mine is theology. Reading the dietary laws of over 2000 years ago is like reading Julia Child's on how to eat properly and proper place setting. Except instead of today this is for 2000 + years ago.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Penn

Echoes, My apologies, I have read you first and last post. You were seeking dialogue in the first, and explained your experience in the second. Both were nicely done, I misread the first post, hence my remarks.

Penn,

It really was a great experience, and can only hope to be exposed to more! These days, everything is new to me in the world of cooking...

Rock-on Chef,

Holly

[BOfH]

I'll bite(no pun intended)

Disclaimer: The following comes from years of experience(eating Kosher since day one ) and what I have learned over the years, however, it is in no way definitive.


The laws of Kashrut are very complex and vary depending on where one's family is from; modern technology adds to this complexity as well. It seems the Rabbi who you were working with had it down to a science, as do many who oversee food preparation, and taught you well

The foundations for the separation of milk and meat stem from the fact that the Bible(Old Testament) states "Do not cook a calf in its mother's milk" three times, from there it is derived three negative prohibitions:
1) do not cook
2) do not eat
3) do not derive benefit

This Biblical prohibition only applies to Kosher warm-blooded animals, however the Rabbis extended the prohibition to apply to fowl as well. Kosher warm-blooded animals and fowl require ritual slaughter(hence the reason why Jews don't hunt for food) with an extremely sharp knife, soaked and salted in order to drain the blood as not to violate the prohibition of eating blood. Fish does not require ritual slaughter or soaking and salting, fish blood is technically Kosher, however a Rabbinic prohibition exists in order to prevent deception. A Kosher animal must have split hooves and chew its cud, fowl is listed, Kosher fish must have fins and scales. The prohibition of cooking extends to the utensils used, however, there are complex laws which define a utensils status when hot, cold, after 24 hours of no use, washed with strong detergents etc. As a result, a Kosher kitchen maintains two separate sets of utensils, one for milk and one for meat and sometimes a third for Pareve(neutral) or non-milk or meat food products. The colors you mentioned above are often used to denote milk, meat and Pareve.

Over the years, tradition and custom has varied among Jews from different parts of the world, for example:
1. The waiting time between meat and milk varies, depending on where your family is from, most Jews of Eastern European descent wait 6 hours, German Jews wait 3 hours, Dutch Jews wait 30 minutes(I have to double check this) etc .
2. Sephardic Jews(Middle Eastern) do not eat fish and milk together.
3. Waiting time between aged(hard) cheeses and meat varies as well.

Technology adds its complexities as well. It is generally accepted that one maintains separate dishwashers for utensils used with meat than with milk, however, there are opinions that state due to the intense heat and strength of the detergents, clean dishes technically can have no status i.e. they can be used for either milk and meat. Glass, certain plastics and Teflon present issues as well since they are non-porous, there are opinions that state they hold no status at all and can be used for either milk or meat provided they are washed in between each transition.

As far as ethnic foods go, it really depends on region and availability of certain items. Eastern European ethnic Jewish food does not vary much from it's non-Jewish counterparts, heavy on the potatoes, chicken, carrots, onions and the occasional beef. The same goes for Sephardic(Middle Eastern) which is a large mix of rice, peppers, onions, tomatoes, goat and all things spicy.

Bear in mind that the laws of Kashrut fill thousands upon thousands of pages of Jewish law, it is a very complex area, and the above information really just scratches the surface.

I'll try to answer any further questions as best as I could, it's been a while since I have studied this area of law.

BOfH

[mark46th]

So, I take it that a pot pie is not Kosher? Meat and vegetables in a butter and cream based sauce with a pastry cover? Bummer

[BOfH]

Originally Posted by mark46th

So, I take it that a pot pie is not Kosher? Meat and vegetables in a butter and cream based sauce with a pastry cover? Bummer

Yea, though you could substitute butter for margarine and build the cream base with flour, non-dairy creamer and broth...

[PedOncoDoc]

I had fun kicking the hornet's next with a friend of mine who eats kosher. I tried to convince her that Jimmy Buffet must be anti-semitic due to him singing a song about enjoying a decidedly non-koshed meal in heaven (the Cheeseburger in Paradise).

Cheeseburgers are most sacrilicious.


Thanks for the breakdown of Kosher kitchens/food law, BOfF - it jives with what I've seen in friends' kitchens and their explanation - but gives more detail.

Hollis- thanks for the link. I enjoyed reading the commentary on hair covering - it was very thoughtful and provides a stark contrast to other cultural views on hair covering that I have read from different religions.

[Penn]

BOfh

Yea, though you could substitute butter for margarine and build the cream base with flour, non-dairy creamer and broth...

Actually, there are very few commercial Pot Pies made with cream and butter. Almost all to my knowledge are constructed using classic béchamel style sauce, but are a roux base velouté sauce (fat, flour and stock as described above). Marie Calendar products, of California replace butter with margarine. The velouté sauce sauce replaces the cream with stock. They are fantastic Pot Pies.

edit to add:
Béchamel sauce recipes are all roux bases, they ordinate as a roux. Your option to create a roux using margarine, rather than butter, can be a healthy choice as well as an economic one. Once you have a Roux equal parts fat to flour, you can add any stock. At that point it really become’s a velouté sauce, not a Béchamel, for they have milk, or cream.
Both Béchamel and Volute’s are blond sauces. And are one of the five "Mother Sauces" of French cusisine.

[mark46th]

Penn- I was a Marie Callender employee for 5 years. That's where I learned how to cook. We made all of our own soups, pie fillings, sauces, etc from scratch on site.