Kosher Kitchen: Definitions and Denominations

As promised, here is part one of (what will hopefully be) a series about keeping and cooking in a kosher kitchen. Keep in mind that there is no one way to keep kosher, just as there is no one way to be Jewish. My descriptions are based on my life and requirements. Some basic definitions, first.

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What is kosher? The word literally means "fit", as in fit to be eaten. No blessing by a rabbi here! The Bible prohibits cooking a kid in its mother's milk and lists animals that can and cannot be eaten. The basic Biblical prohibition is expanded greatly in rabbinic literature; for example, all mixing of meat and milk, rather than just a kid in mother's milk, is prohibited. Wine and grape derivatives must be kosher as well. Unprocessed food items, such as uncut fruit and vegetables, do not require supervision, but do require checking for bugs (see below.) Many more prohibitions were added in later generations to safeguard the original laws from being broken and as new situations, foods and technologies arose.

What are those animals? Cattle are required to have split hooves and chew their cud. Animals that fit this description include cows and lambs. Out at this stage are camels, hares, and (shocker) pigs. Fish are required to have fins and scales, and only the birds listed in the text are allowed. Bugs and shellfish are prohibited.

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Can any animal on that list be eaten? Mammals and fowl must be slaughtered according to the procedures laid forth in Jewish law, which include using a sharp, unserrated knife to fully sever the animal's jugular and carotid arteries, as well as a rigorous check for imperfections in the animal's organs, which may render it nonkosher. According to most authorities, fish can be purchased from a standard fishmonger if one knows that the knives used don't come in contact with nonkosher fish or shellfish. Blood is not kosher, so a salting process is used to drain blood from meat.

These are the very basic kosher ground rules. As I mentioned, however, keeping kosher entails more than just avoiding certain combinations and animals. There is a great concern in the legal literature about contamination and supervision. If I boil milk in a pot previously used to make beef stew, this constitutes a prohibited mixture, even though both meat and milk aren't technically in the pot at the same time. Any item used for food preparation is considered to have a kosher (or nonkosher) status based on the food it has been used to prepare.

Given the great amount of knowledge required to keep kosher, there is a similar concern with food prepared by those who don't know or follow the rules. Can I assume that the vegetarian entree served to me at a local restaurant truly contains no meat byproducts, and that the pans and utensils are used only for vegetarian dishes? The same suspicion holds true for manufactured food products: without proper supervision, can a consumer be assured that no trace elements of the prohibited foodstuffs have made their way into food?

Food is therefore broken into three categories:

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Dairy (Hebrew: chalavi, Yiddish: milchig/k)-- contains dairy in some form, or cooked in a pot recently used to cook dairy. You'd be surprised at how many regular food items contain dairy proteins, rendering them dairy in kosher law.

Meat (Hebrew: b'sari, Yiddish: fleishik/g/kh)-- contains meat in some form, or cooked in a pot recently used to cook meat.

Pareve-- contains neither dairy nor meat.

Congratulations! You now know the basic laws, what can and can't be eaten and the 3 denominations of food. Next time I'll talk about the basics of keeping a kosher kitchen: just how many sets of pots and pans do you need? How about dishes? How can you tell if a food item is kosher? How about a restaurant?

As always, please feel free to ask anything, either through comments, email or formspring.

Further reading:
Wikipedia
MyJewishLearning
Orthodox Union