What Is Kosher?
The Jewish dietary laws have been followed for millennia, with scholars weighing in over the centuries. Here’s a description of where they are today, and how they are followed in our modern society.
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The extent to which any individual follows the Kosher rules is Judaism is a personal choice. We hope you have a better understanding of what Kosher means after reading guide in which we answer the most common questions about what it means to keep kosher.
What Is Kosher? And What Does Kosher Mean?
The literal translation of the word kosher is "fit" or "appropriate." In practice, it means following the dietary guidelines set down in the Torah, or Old Testament, and set by Jewish law. It is referred to as "keeping kosher." In brief, here is a list of the rules that are followed by observant Jews.
- Meat and dairy: They may not be eaten at the same time. Typically, families keeping kosher have two sets of dishes, cutlery and pots and pans, one for milk and one for meat.
- Parve: Neutral (Parve) foods can eaten with dairy or meat. These are foods that are neither meat nor dairy, such as eggs, fish with fins and scales and fresh vegetables and fruits. Parve foods can be cooked in either set of cookware. But once you cook an egg in a dairy pan, it’s considered dairy, so you’d eat it on a dairy plate with a dairy fork.
- Pork is not permitted: The only animals that can be eaten are those with a cloven hoof who chew their cud. Beef, lamb and goat are permitted; pork is not. The meat must be butchered and processed according to kosher guidelines; more on that below.
- Birds of prey are not permitted: Domesticated fowl are okay; birds of prey are not. So all domesticated chicken, turkey, duck and geese are okay.
- Shellfish is not permitted: The only seafood permitted is fish with fins and scales. Shellfish is not allowed.
What Is a Kosher Diet?
A Kosher diet is just a different way to say that a person follows all the traditional Jewish dietary laws when they eat. It means the same thing as saying someone keeps kosher.
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How Do You Know If Something Is Kosher?
For packaged goods such as cookies, ketchup, bread, cake mixes - really anything you can buy at the grocery store - it'll have a little kosher symbol on it. There are a number of symbols, and, in addition to signifying kosher, the symbol will tell you if it dairy or parve (neutral). The strictest form of kosher is called glatt kosher. If you order a deli platter from a kosher deli, it will be completely sealed with plastic wrap so nothing can get in, and it will have stickers on it signifying that it is glatt. You could take anything like that to any strict kosher home and know that you’ve done the right thing. One more tip is that most vegan food is Kosher.
What Makes Something Kosher?
For meat to be kosher, it needs to follow several rules.
Raw Vegetables, Fruits and Eggs
These are innately kosher.
Packaged Foods
Packaged foods must have a certified kosher label on them. To achieve this label, the manufacturing facility gets inspected by professionals who are specially trained. Once the factory passes, it gets to put the kosher label on its foods.
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How Is Kosher Meat Different?
Kosher meat is different from non-kosher meat in three main ways. If you go to a kosher butcher, you can be certain the meat follows these rules.
- It must be slaughtered following the rules laid down centuries ago. The animals are slaughtered by a person trained to kill the animal as quickly and painlessly as possible. This applies to beef and poultry.
- Beef cuts of meat come from the front end of the animal. Slaughterhouses can sell the kosher meat at a premium, and the cuts from the back end can be sold as non-kosher.
- You should not eat meat with blood in it. To accomplish this edict, the meat is salted to draw out the blood. Many people take advantage of the salting process at Thanksgiving time: buying a kosher turkey means you don’t have to brine it, because it’s already brined.
Kosher-Style Recipes
Renee Comet, © 2016, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved
This cake is amazing any time of year, but many families have it as a Passover dessert. The butter can be swapped with parve margarine so it can be served after a meat meal.
All vegetables are kosher, as are oils and spices as long as they are marked with the proper certification. This recipe is a loving nod to the Middle Eastern food served in Israel.
Round challah, to signify the circle of life, is traditionally served at Jewish New Year celebrations along with apples and honey for a sweet new year.
This brisket hits all the right notes: sweet, salty, citrus and hot. Kikkoman soy sauce is kosher, and it's also possible to buy kosher sriracha.
Matt
Cooking mushrooms brings out their meatiness; adding veggies and topping them with dairy-free creamy mashed potatoes makes this vegan entreé a winner.
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