#can be made pareve

[docholligay]

Oh my God y'all I have had the most adhd disaster docdoc moment of all time. I'm crying while also howl laughing. This is among the stupidest things I've ever done, but is so harmless that I think it's hilarious even as I am sitting here exhausted. Laugh with me.

Today, I am making dinner for our entire congregation. I have been working all day preparing 20 quarts of elk stew, 6 quarts of butternut squash soup (vegan), sangria (pareve), cranberry ginger orange punch (pareve, nonalcoholic), 2 loaves of homemade bread (pareve), chocolate chip cookie bars (pareve), pumpkin latte bars (pareve), and a peach blackberry pie (pareve).

When I make dinner for the congregation, it's generally a fairly big deal. It's actually advertised in our temple tablet because it makes more people show up! This makes me really proud, to be honest. This month, they didn't do that. They just said it was community shabbat dinner. I was a little hurt, but immediately was like, 'Check your fuckin ego at the door, Holligay. Is this about praise? Shut the fuck up." Figured someone's feelings got hurt.

You may see where this is going.

3 pm, I contact the gal who runs the dinners and asks if she can let me in at 5:15ish so i can get set up.

"Doc--" she types kindly, "I have the OtherJews down for dinner tonight, and you for 12/20. But maybe I have my wires crossed and you have it all figured out."

She says, attaching the sheet where I clearly have written my name on the 20th of December.

IT WAS NOT ADVERTISED THAT I WAS DOING THE DINNER TONIGHT BECAUSE, LOCAL SHERLOCKS MAY HAVE DIVINED, I AM NOT.

I seriously made dinner for about 45 people and I am not the 'caterer' tonight ahahaha.

[ramlionbam]

...ok i'm still jewish raging and jewish horrified and the depression isnt going away any time soon.

but this shabbat i made challah and babka. take this challah and this babka recipe.

use the challah recipe to make the dough. you can make enough for two challot, only one, etc.; either way, at the shaping stage, split the dough in half. use one half to make challah. use the other half for babka. use the linked babka recipe for the babka filling and for shaping guidance (you can use either a loaf pan or baking tray for the babka). once the shaped loaves have risen, you can also use the challah recipe's egg wash for both challah + babka.

while the loaves bake, the babka recipe includes guidance for making simple syrup to pour over the babka!! i find that it really does help to keep the babka nice and moist. also keep in mind that some filling (or egg wash, if you overdo it) may leak out from the loaf and burn.

keep in mind that while the challah recipe is pareve, the babka recipe is dairy. you may need to make substitutions or take the concept and apply to different recipes.

unfortunately i barely ever remember to take babka photos, so i only have this photo of making the babka in a loaf pan alongside the challah. one of my early attempts. nowadays i make it on a baking tray.

[mariacallous]

Apples dipped in honey and honey cakes are popular across the Jewish world around Rosh Hashanah. But if you grew up in Israel, you most likely came across a unique variation of honey treats: duvshaniyot. These dense, dark, round honey cookies are a must in many families’ High Holidays nosh rotation.

The modest duvshaniyot (their name derives from the Hebrew word dvash, meaning honey) seem to have been part of the Israeli repertoire forever and you can find them on the cookie shelves in every supermarket in the country. They are cheap, pareve and last forever, so no wonder they have become a regular for Rosh Hashanah afternoon tea, for breaking the fast on Yom Kippur, and for dipping in a cold glass of milk in the sukkah. But these unassuming cookies hold a long history, as most Jewish and Israeli dishes do. 

Duvshaniyot are the Israeli adaptation of a popular Russian cookie called pryaniki. Dating back to medieval Russia, pryaniki were made with honey, rye flour and berry juice, and were known simply as “honey bread.” Starting around the 12th or 13th centuries, when Russia started opening up to imports from the Middle East and India, spices and dried fruit were added to the cookie. In different regions throughout Russia, people experimented with new additions to this cookie, from jam filling to a later invention of sweetened condensed milk. Some versions were imprinted using delicate wooden forms, and some were simply rolled by hand and dipped in sugar glaze — the same version that’s still popular in Israel today.

People sometimes confuse pryaniki with German lebkuchen (aka gingerbread cookies), but it is rare to see ginger added to these classic Russian cookies, and even lebkuchen don’t always have ginger in them. Traditionally, pryaniki were spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, coriander, and even black pepper and cumin. In fact, their name, pryaniki, comes from the Russian word for spiced, pryanik.

Different versions of pryaniki can be found around Eastern Europe, like piernik in Poland and lect cookies in Slovenia, which are heart-shaped, painted red and artfully decorated with colorful icing. These Eastern European versions were traditionally served around Christmas, but were adapted by Jews for their own holidays, mainly Rosh Hashanah, for the use of the symbolic honey.

From Eastern Europe, the little honey cookie made its way to Israel and the United States. “The Settlement Cook Book,” a classic 1901 American Jewish cookbook by Lizzie Black Kander, includes two versions of lebkuchen, both with citrus and almonds, but no ginger. Even more interesting, is that neither include honey, but instead call for brown sugar or molasses.

An early Israeli cookbook, “Folklore Cookbook” by Molly Bar-David, has recipes for honey cookies that are similar to pryaniki and for lebkuchen. Bar-David suggests adding ginger to the honey cookies and calls for margarine instead of butter, maybe to keep the cookies pareve.

Today, Israeli manufacturers of duvshaniyot must be doing a good job, as I notice the same Israeli brand cookies at many Russian stores in the United States. But maybe because duvshaniyot are readily available in every supermarket, most Israelis do not prepare them at home. That’s a shame, because as is the case with most baked goods, homemade is better. And when the recipe is as easy as the one below, there’s no reason not to.

You can add any of the classic gingerbread cookie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, coriander, clove, and even black pepper and cumin) as well as cocoa powder, strong coffee or chopped chocolate. Candied citrus peel or any tart candied fruit, as well as citrus zest. You can try to replace some of the flour with rye flour to be closer to the original Russian version, or replace some of the flour with almond meal and make it closer to the German lebkuchen. It’s up to you.

Some recipes, including centuries-old recipes, suggest letting the dough rest for a few hours and up to a week before baking the cookies. This will deepen its flavors and will make rolling the dough easier. But even if you bake it right away, the cookies will improve with time, so I suggest baking them at least two days before serving. You can easily prepare them the week before Rosh Hashanah and then serve them for break the fast on Yom Kippur.

Notes:

The cookie dough needs to chill in the refrigerator, or up to overnight.

The cookies will improve with time, so I suggest baking them at least two days before serving, though you can keep them in a sealed container at room temperature up to a month.

[hindahoney]

Do you have any specific tips on learning to keep kosher? Advice like what dairy substitutes work best or a reliable place to get recipes would be great. I grew up in a house that mixes dairy and meat for most meals so any help would be greatly appreciated. If you've already answered this, could you give a link to the post? I couldn't find one, but that might be because tumblr's search function doesn't work.

Sure! Here is a post I made about keeping kosher. Substitutes are your best friend. If a recipe calls for butter, using vegetable oil instead could be better if you're eating it with a meat meal. Margarine is also a great substitute when making baked goods. Mixing lemon juice with a nut milk gives you buttermilk.

In brownies, using orange juice instead of milk makes the flavor really pop. I love doing this on shabbat so I can have a dessert after a meat meal. You could also just use any other nut milk, or oat milk (just make sure it has a pareve symbol on it, I've seen some oat milks that are still OU D because it's sometimes manufactured in dairy machines or factories). Pareve chocolate is a miracle to be appreciated. Using egg noodles or zucchini noodles are great when you want to have a meat-based dish, and pareve bread for meat-based sandwiches.

I love using vegan or vegetarian plant-based meats in my dishes.* For example, I use vegan ground beef in my lasagna, so I can still use regular noodles and cheese. Plant-based chicken is also great for skillets or pasta. You could also just use fish instead, as it's considered pareve. I don't like the taste of vegan cheese, so I'd much rather use real cheese and vegan meat, but it's always an option. If you don't have meat but still want a filling meal, using grains such as quinoa, or starches like potatoes, can help with that.

As for finding recipes, there are a few kosher cooking blogs online. To find things I usually just search whatever food I want followed by "kosher" and it's usually there. If I can't find a recipe for it, I use a regular recipe with the above substitutes to make it kosher. Buying kosher cookbooks is also a good idea. I don't recommend just searching for "jewish cookbooks" because sometimes those include non-kosher dishes, so search specifically for kosher cookbooks.

*Some Jews have customs that don't allow them to eat vegan meats due to abiding by the spirit of the law, and the fact that the appearance of eating something not kosher could mislead others. It is best to discuss this with your rabbi if you think this may be an issue.

[remitiras]

It's so fun to come back home after a long day of work and find a fork and teaspoon from your kosher set inside a bowl from the not-kosher set your roommates use, together with a not-kosher tablespoon, and not know what was eaten with them.

The set is in a seperate drawer which is clearly labelled "kosher dairy" and I also asked them to not put not-kosher kitchenware in the left sink, because I use it for my kosher set.

I'm trying to be a nice roommate and told them that they can use the set but only with kosher dairy/pareve food, since our apartment owner paid for it and not me, but I really regret it now because I don't have a way to make sure they don't ruin my dishes. And they keep leaving their dirty dishes in the sink, and when they do wash their stuff they don't put it away. One of them used the completely new toaster oven we have that also has a sticker that says "Kosher dairy" on and they didn't clean the oven tray and I don't even know what they made in there.

The kitchen was disgusting when I moved here. It's still half disgusting but everything that's clean is because I cleaned it myself.

I'm so frustrated!! I just want to be able to eat and share my food with my more religious friends without fearing they tainted my utensils. I think I'm gonna re-kasher all my silverware.

[overmorrowpine]

okay this might be a little bit silly considering i almost never cry but im like halfway to crying about this cookbook having notes like "this is a pareve version. for a meat version, substitute meat stock and add cubed beef" or whatever (im looking through soups for dinner rn) like. i don't have to do the work to make sure the recipe is kosher. someone else has already made sure it's kosher. my family has gotten it basically (like, they don't cook their bacon in the same pan as im gonna use for my eggs, stuff like that) but like. it's not on me to make sure i can eat this food. someone else has already done it

[hints-and-hacks]

People. Purim is coming in just over a week. You NEED to make these hamentaschen. Mom & I are baking these and 1-2 other flavors tomorrow; we've made these every year since we started baking hamentaschen together in like 2018. (Skipped 2020 because plague, but other than that...) Our friends look forward to receiving them. We love them. MAKE THEM.

YES, you can make these pareve!!! That's how we do them all the time, cuz my body doesn't do dairy! Instead of Nutella, use Israeli chocolate spread or an equivalent thereof for the filling, and use pareve/vegan white chocolate, available on Amazon if not in a local store.

[suugrbunz]

oh, yeah,, you can use vegetarian marshmallows for sure (I was raised vegan so I get where you’re coming from :))!! I’ve seen recipes that use silken tofu a couple times. When I last made it, I used coconut cream cooked with a lot of sugar and. cornflour to thicken, then peppermint extract and green colouring added. warm vanilla custard is such a homely dessert <3 Lol, I find it so funny we’re talking about this when your blog isn’t even vaguely about food 😆😊

Oh, I love silken tofu, I'd definitely have to try that version. in America, the kosher marshmallows at the market are a french brand. They use a fish gelatin rather than beef or chicken. Coconut cream is really good as well, i love the nutty taste coconut milks and creams have. Funnily enough, I hate shredded coconut or coconut water. I'll definitely have to try this when I have a chance.

Same, i love conversations like these. There's a lot of kosher vegan products as well, since we eat a lot of pareve versions of meat or dairy products. I love little crossovers like that, it's a reminder that people aren't that different.

[fabfemmeboy]

I noticed in your tags you said that some kosher laws are racist. I'm kind of confused by that, I've never heard that before. Could you explain what you mean?

So the answer to this is long and complicated and nuanced, and it does rely on the perceived racial/cultural differences between Jews in different parts of the world, but as a (relatively) brief overview:

Because we're a diasporic people, different traditions grew and evolved in different local Jewish communities over centuries. When Judaism kind of coalesced into the modern streams and overseeing bodies were determining which versions of the traditions were doctrinally "correct," they pretty much always chose the ones that matched Ashkenazi traditions/rules and said that the ones that Sephardi and/or Mizrahi Jews practiced were incorrect. Given that Ashkenazim were generally white-adjacent while Sephardi and MIzrahi Jews were generally not-white-adjacent, and given that race is a social construct based on who's "like us" and who's "not like us" largely using cultural background and perceived physical characteristics, it feels fair to me to call that "race-based."

The example that's easiest to unpack is kitniyot. Until only a few years ago, it was prohibited during Pesach for Jews in most streams. The rationale was that kitniyot contained items that could easily be mistaken for the 5 prohibited grains, and therefore either a person could inadvertently consume a prohibited grain while eating kitniyot OR a person could see someone eating a product made with kitniyot, assume it meant they could eat the 'usual' version of the product, and thereby eat one of the prohibited grains. What was included in kitniyot? Legumes, rice, corn, a lot of things eaten in Latin America, MENA, etc. What was not included in kitniyot? Potatoes, which are most common in Europe (especially Eastern Europe, where Ashkenazim lived when making these traditions).

Conservative and Orthodox Judaism literally said that Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews (who were fine with kitniyot during Pesach) were celebrating it wrong and violating the rules of Pesach by eating...hummus. Chicken and rice. Corn tortillas. All sorts of things. Why? Because you can make rice flour or almond flour, make something out of it that looks like it's made with wheat flour, and lead innocent Jews down a path of destruction. Ok, fine, fence around Torah and all that. But if you look on any Kosher for Passover shelf in any western supermarket, it's an array of items designed to look and taste as much like their wheat-flour products as possible. Those are allowed, because they use potato flour.

There are also some discrepancies as to whether the Sephardi traditions are considered 'valid'/proper when it comes to things like defining meat (e.g. fish isn't pareve in all cultures!), etc.

[fdelopera]

From this article:

Originally, Western Sephardic Jews settling in England in the 17th century would have prepared fried fish in a manner similar to ‘Pescado frito’, which is coated in flour. Battered fish is coated in flour and dipped into a batter consisting of flour mixed with liquid, usually water but sometimes beer. Some newer modifications to the recipe may add cornflour, and sometimes use soda water instead of beer.

It’s good that more people are realizing that fish and chips is originally a Sephardic Jewish dish. Tellingly, so long as vegetable oil is used in the frying process, the ingredients of fish and chips can be kosher, and they are also pareve (containing neither milk nor meat/poultry).

After Spain and Portugal cast out their Jewish citizens in 1492 on the pain of death or conversion, those Sephardic Jews fled to other parts of the world, including Mexico, Central and South America, Italy, and England. Sephardic Jews brought their culinary traditions with them where they went, influencing the food of many nations, including the UK. Fish and chips is just one example of the contribution that Sephardic Jews have made to world cuisine.

say what you will about the British they went off with fish and chips.

[sethshead]

My father was big fan of herring in cream sauce. I always found it too heavy. It took me oil-cured matjes and herring in wine sauce (one of the few things I'll admit Zabar's can match Russ & Daughters on) to get into this particular fish.

Now I wonder if herring in its own milt (how is not the equivalent of simmering a kid in its mother's milk, to nom a herring in its own semen?), with a lighter creamy texture and the addition of vinegar, would be the best of all worlds? Was it the progenitor of herring in cream, or just a parve variant thereof? I'd try this, if only I knew where to get herring milt these days.

This is also a reminder of just how poverty-stricken Jews were in both the Old World and New. From a perspective of relative success in the US, we should not forget how many went hungry and were lost to the horrible attrition of disease, malnutrition, mental illness, and dangerous job conditions in the slums where we first settled. The story of American Jews is not one so much of triumph but of tragedy, survivorship bias, and some survivor's guilt.

[mariacallous]

It’s remarkable how just a handful of ingredients — celery, onion, carrots, mushrooms, barley and water — can truly transform into something hearty and nourishing. This isn’t unlike other Jewish foods, like cholent or chicken soup; Jews are masterful at transforming the ingredients on-hand into dishes that feed bellies and souls.

I am sure you have heard of mushroom barley soup, maybe enjoyed a bowl at your local deli or diner, or perhaps your grandmother made it from scratch. But did you know that mushroom-barley soup, or krupnik, is even more Jewish than matzah ball soup?

As Joel Haber explains in this piece, krupnik is a simple and hearty Polish soup made from barley and various root vegetables. Eastern European Jews had a strong affinity for mushrooms, since they were rich, nutritious and, best of all, they grew abundantly in local wooded areas, making them free.

Making this soup without meat also allows it to be pareve, so it can be eaten with either dairy or meat meals according to kosher dietary laws. While non-Jews may have made a vegetarian version if they couldn’t afford meat, most Polish recipes stress the importance of both meat and bones to create the proper consistency, making the vegetarian version distinctly Jewish.

This soup is ideal for so many things: a comforting meal train meal, paired with crusty bread and a salad; easy to make as a big batch to enjoy all week for lunch; or when you want to hear your kids complain “I don’t like mushrooms,” and then eat the barley and carrots all around those carefully sautéed mushrooms.

Notes:

Anyone who has watched “Julie & Julia” knows you don’t want to crowd your pan when cooking mushrooms. I cook this quantity of mushrooms in three batches to allow them enough space to caramelize slightly on each side.

I chose to make this recipe with a combination of white mushrooms and baby bella mushrooms. You can absolutely mix different types of mushrooms based on your taste (or what you have on hand), as long as the total quantity is around 1 lb.

If you want to turn the mushroom flavor up even more, you could add some rehydrated porcini mushrooms as you sauté the mushrooms. You can also add some of the hydrating mushroom liquid into the both for extra umami.

To make this soup pareve (non-dairy), just omit the butter.

This soup keeps well in the fridge for 3-5 days and can be frozen; you may just need to add some additional water or broth when reheating.

[hindahoney]

Do you have any tips for eating kosher food when it's not easily available to you? It's slightly easier cause I don't eat meat but its very hard and I'd like help

To anyone who wants to eat kosher, my most important advice is to start slow. It's a process. If you cut out everything at once you will get overwhelmed and quit.

My first advice is to only eat things with a hechsher on it. Because you don't eat meat, it's already significantly easier for you. The problem is finding dairy with a hechsher, especially cheese. A lot of cheeses are made with rennet, which is a part of the animal we are forbidden to eat. This is why a lot of cheese chips and snacks aren't kosher, even if they seem like they should be (doritos were SO hard to let go of for me, and I'll never forgive Sunchips for removing their hechsher). A lot of foods also have non kosher dyes that were made with insect shells, the same with sodas. Additionally, checking produce for any bugs is always a good idea!!! Even produce in grocery chains are likely to contain little bugs. I promise once you start checking, you'll see them. So many products are full of chemicals that were created with non-kosher ingredients or in non-kosher facilities, so the best way to ensure you're not accidentally consuming them is to just eat hechsher products.

For people who do eat meat, however, you can still eat most fish because it's considered pareve. Chicken used to be in this category, though this was changed over time by rabbis who noticed that people began thinking of chicken as meat. The argument proposed is that the Torah says "Thou shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk," and since chickens don't produce milk, this prohibition does not apply. Rabbis would say that the spirit of the law means it does. It is up to you whether you want to agree with the rabbis about this. For me, when I first started keeping kosher, I would allow myself to eat chicken, before I slowly removed it from my diet to abide by the rabbinical ruling. I also think the spirit of the law should apply to eating eggs and chicken (though eggs are pareve) together, if we are prohibiting eating an animal with its potential child. But I'm not aware of any rabbis who have said this (but jews talk about everything so they're probably out there.)

Eating meat or cheese plant-based hechshered substitutes are also acceptable, depending on your movement. For me personally, I will eat hechshered meat substitutes, and this satiates my cravings for meat until I can get kosher meat. Gardein is a good brand, and so is Morning Star, and I'm sure other countries have their own brands. The argument against eating meat substitutes was that the appearance of an observant jew eating what looks to be a cheeseburger could cause other observant Jews to believe the laws around kashrut have changed, leading them to break kosher. This law made more sense back then, but now I'm not so convinced, but that's up to you to decide. Eventually, I see myself no longer eating meat substitutes once I live in an area with a kosher market, but for now this has to do.

Work your way up to waiting between meat and milk. The time varies, I've heard anything from one to eight hours.

Make sure to crack your eggs in a separate clear container to check for blood. It's not common, but it happens.

Eating vegan or vegetarian while you're out is a decent compromise in the beginning until you feel ready to let go of restaurants.

Lastly, have a little non-kosher food send off. Before you start your journey, eat your favorite non kosher food and then say goodbye to it forever, at least until you can find a way to make it kosher. Eating kosher is hard. But it's a reminder of the covenant between yourself and HaShem. When you eat kosher foods, the belief is that whatever animal was used in the making has now served a higher purpose.

If anyone else has tips on how to start keeping kosher, or ways that help you, feel free to share!

[wouldnt-it-be-hilarious-if-i]

What is Kosher?

Kosher: The Basics / What is Kosher? - Everyday Jewish Mom What is Kosher? Chabad.org (Youtube)

What is Kosher? (Website)

What is kosher? What are kosher rules?

The Hebrew word kosher literally means "fit." The Laws of Kosher are guidelines for what are and what are not fit foods for Jews to consume. This means that certain species of animals (and their milk/eggs as well) are allowed to be consumed, and some are forbidden. As you can see in the infographic, a good example of a non-kosher food would be pork or shellfish.

Kosher laws also prohibit the consumption of meat and dairy together. In a kosher household, separate utensils are used when making either type of food. Foods cannot be kosher if they use these two ingredients together, or if they are prepared using the wrong utensils (such as if one were to prepare meat on the same cutting board where they sliced cheese). Also important is that there is a waiting period between eating the two types of food. The Chabad video states that waiting period as six hours, but the other video says that this time can vary based on different communities.

Another important thing to remember is that meat must come from animals that are slaughtered in a very specific and painless way. This method is an ancient method called shechitah (or ritual slaughtering). The meat is checked for disease and certain parts are removed (including the blood).

Fruits, vegetables and grains are typically considered kosher, but the itty bitty bugs that might be on those things are not kosher. This means always checking these foods for any signs of bugs in order to ensure it's kosher status.

While watching these videos and reading the article I read, I learned that Kosher does not mean food blessed by a rabbi, which is what I was always told. Kosher means following the laws of Kosher. A Rabbi is involved in the process, just not the way I was taught. Since any, even the tiniest amount, of non-kosher food can render a food no longer kosher, all processed food and eating establishments are required to be evaluated and certified by a reliable Rabbi or a kashrut (laws of kosher) supervision agency.

So, why do Jews keep kosher?

According to the Chabad video, no one really knows exactly why the Torah defines the laws of kosher. Regardless of this, keeping kosher is considered a mitzvah (a good deed) and another way to honor G-d. The Chabad website writes that, "The kosher laws were commanded by G‑d to the children of Israel in the Sinai Desert. Moses taught them to the people and wrote the basics of these laws in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14." Eventually, these laws were passed down and written in the Talmud and the Mishnah. Keeping kosher is a uniquely Jewish experience as well as a definitive one.

It shows that even the most mundane acts, such as eating, are G-dly.

More about keeping kosher:

There are three categories of kosher foods:

Meat includes the meat or bones of mammals and fowl, soups or gravies made with them, and any food containing even a small quantity of the above.

Dairy includes the milk of any kosher animal, all milk products made with it (cream, butter, cheese, etc.), and any food containing even a small quantity of the above.

Pareve foods are neither “meat” nor “dairy.” Eggs are pareve, as are all fruits, vegetables and grains. Pareve foods can be mixed with and eaten together with either meat or dairy (fish are parve, but not eaten with meat due to health concerns outlined in the Talmud).

Eggs, Milk and Honey

"A rule of thumb cited by the Talmud is: What comes from a kosher animal is kosher; what comes from a non-kosher animal is not kosher."

Milk and eggs are only kosher if they come from kosher animals. All eggs are supposed to be inspected before being used to check for blood spots.

Honey is kosher because isn't considered an animal product. Bees, however, are not kosher.

"The kosher laws stipulate that all dairy products should be chalav Yisrael (lit., “Jewish milk”): a Torah-observant Jew must be present from the milking to the end of the processing to ensure that only milk from kosher animals is used.

Kosher terms

Kosher: (Hebrew) the catch-all term that refers to all that is fit to be consumed or to be used together with kosher food.

Treif: (Hebrew) literally, “torn,” referring to an animal that met an unnatural death other than shechitah, but extended to mean any food that is not fit to eat.

Parve: (Yiddish) the in-between, neutral foods, which are neither meat nor dairy and may be eaten with both.

Fleishig: (Yiddish) meaty. Variants include fleishigs, and fleishige.

Milchig: (Yiddish) dairy. Variants include milchige and milchige.

Pesachdig: Kosher for Passover (Pesach). Since Passover has its own set of rules, food and dishes that conform to the Passover standards are referred to as Pesachdig or Pesachdik.

Kasher: (Yiddish) the act of making something kosher. This can either refer to the salting of meat or to the process of making dishes or appliances kosher through the application of heat.

Mashgiach: (Hebrew) supervisor, often appointed by a supervising agency to ensure that food produced at a commercial establishment is kosher.

Hashgachah: (Hebrew) Supervision, and the certification thereof, often issued by a rabbi or a rabbinic agency.

Hechsher: (Hebrew) Kosher certification, and the actual symbol denoting that a given product is certified kosher.

Glatt: (Yiddish). Literally “smooth,” this refers to an animal whose lungs have been found to be superbly healthy and free of adhesions. Since this is a higher standard of kosher, it has come to refer to food that is kosher according to the most exacting of standards.

Shechitah: (Hebrew) Kosher slaughter.

Shochet: (Hebrew) Trained kosher slaughterer.

Chumrah: (Hebrew) Additional stringencies that are beyond the letter of the law, which some communities or individuals may adopt.

Notes

This was very interesting to learn about, but it's definitely a lot to remember. I've babysat for a family that kept kosher in the past, and it was really interesting to learn from them a little about it. I didn't know that there wasn't a specific reason for why Jews keep kosher other than what I explained above. But given when I know about Jewish history, I always just assumed that it was for health reasons. I remember reading somewhere that kosher laws (among other things) were why Jewish people weren't initially falling ill at the same rate as Christians during the black plague. This was one reason why they were persecuted (because it was assumed they were engaging in witchcraft.

One thing that interested me was how hygienic it all is. These laws have existed for so long, since well before science really studied these things. It interests me that these were written down, and have continued to be so intuitive and hygienic to this day. It just all sounds so cool to me!

I'll definitely have to read more about it.

[kosherian]

Kosher side blog

This is an account I made to collect Kosher (and easily-turned Kosher) recipes because I got tired of Tiktok and Instagram recipe vids constantly being deleted when I went back to find them. 🥕🍅

Feel free to follow, like and reblog if you find use in it as well. All videos are tagged with #kosher meat, #kosher dairy, or #kosher pareve, along with many more tags for ease of use such as #can be made kosher. Any video that's not kosher I will tag it and point out substitutions to make. 🍣🍜

Not an education blog, I'm not an expert, still learning. Feel free to make any corrections! 🍵🍓