Omer and Kashrut
May. 12th, 2011 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillToday is the twenty-second day of the Omer, which is three weeks and one day into the Omer.
I was asked about a Kosher thing, and this is a post I have thought of doing for a while. Ergo, you gets an explanation of the dietary rules of Kashrut*.
I like to start off by explaining that there are, really, two questions used in determining if a chunk of meat is or isn't Kosher:
1. Is the animal it came from Kosher?
2. Was it killed a butchered properly?
Both of the answers must be yes for the meat to be Kosher. All plant products are Kosher; no animal has to die for those.
~~~
Part I - What is a Kosher animal?
There's a pretty big section of Leviticus dealing with this, and the King James translation is actually really good. It's in Chapter 11, if you want to read it. This section is basically lifted straight from the Torah.
For sea creatures: it must have fins AND scales.
For birds: actually, there's not set rule. The non-kosher birds are actually listed in the Torah. The rules of thumb seem to be that it can't be a bird of prey, and it can't be a mean bird.
For bugs: These are explicitly listed, and are locusts, bald locusts, beetles, and grasshoppers. However, because of the fact that there was a very long period of history when the Hebrew language was not in use, the animals actually meant are unknown, and in general we don't eat bugs. Also, that's disgusting.
Products of beasties: in general, if the animal it came from is not kosher, than neither is the product. Thus, eggs of non-kosher birds are not Kosher, and neither is horse milk. Traditionally, Jell-o was made out of ground-up pig's hooves, and was thus not Kosher. More modernly, the use of agar-agar (seaweed) based Jell-o has made it possible for us to consume the wobbly stuff. Even rennet, the protein shake used to turn milk into cheese, is often not Kosher due to its being harvested from the stomachs of beast of unknown providence. The exception to this rule is bees, whose larvae are inedible but whose honey is just fine. I have no idea why. You might have noticed that this list precludes a lot of things which have been or are eaten. Rabbits and hares are specifically excluded; small ground mammals are prohibited by the rules. Reptiles and amphibians of any sort are prohibited, with some, such as turtles and lizards, being specifically listed as forbidden. In fact, the vast majority of animals are not allowed. Which does not preclude us having some pretty good food, you understand. We just have rules.
~~~
Part II - Was is "proper killing"?
A warning: This bit is going to go into detail about animal guts. If that sort of thing squicks you, skip it.
First, even a Kosher animal can't be eaten if it dies on its own. This is presumably because an outwardly healthy animal might have died of a disease, and eating the meat would have passed said disease on. In the same vein, an animal that was killed by wild beasts is inedible, although why you'd want to eat something a lion has been snacking on is beyond me. Anyway. Healthy animal. Time to kill it.
There are three really important things that go through the neck of all land animals/birds. These are the spinal column, the windpipe, and the jugular. In a Kosher slaughter, the windpipe and the jugular must be severed in a single cut with an unserrated knife. The reason is that a good, sharp knife means the animal feels no pain, while at the same time the rapid blood loss means it dies almost instantaneously. This kind of humane slaughter was nearly unknown in the ancient Middle East; in fact, a common procedure was to cut a single leg off an animal and cauterize the stump, which allowed cooking a smaller portion of meat without the whole animal going bad. Ewwww.
Okay, meat. There are parts of the meat which are not Kosher and cannot be eaten. Blood is specifically excluded more than once in the Torah, because it carried the "soul" of the animal, and we eat bodies, not souls. Complete draining of the blood, accomplished mostly through salting, soaking, or broiling, must be finished no more than three days after the slaughter. Even eggs must be blood-free; a single blood spot on the yolk of an egg renders the whole thing inedible, and this does mean I separate every single egg I eat, even if I intend to scramble it, just to check. Any fat that is on the liver, kidneys, spleen, and large and small intestines is excluded because that fat is specifically designated as being the fat that is offered to God. Since people =/= God, we don't eat it. The sciatic nerve, and any meat directly in contact with said nerve, is prohibited in memory of Jacob's angel-wrestling, when he was permanently lamed due to an injury there. In the Old World, there were very skilled butchers who could cut this out; these days, it's more cost-efficient to just sell the hindquarters to the gentiles, who just don't care.
Obviously, this complex method of slaughter applies to meat and poultry (although in birds the nerve is much easier to get at and remove, so we can have thighs and drumsticks). Fish don't have any special rules, excepting that if your method of fish-catching left the fish bloody, you can't throw it back. Presumably, this is because in Israel most fish came from the Mediterranean, where blood in the water was a death sentence by shark anyway. Thus, canned tuna and tinned sardines are just fine, and make lunch-making so much easier.
And thus the complex rules of Kosher are made simple. [snerks] Yeah, right. Simple.
*Kosher literally means "something that has been done properly" and there are ton of commandments about what things are and are not Kosher. You hear about the dietary rules more because, really, when does the fact that having mold on the walls of your house isn't Kosher come up in everyday conversation?
I was asked about a Kosher thing, and this is a post I have thought of doing for a while. Ergo, you gets an explanation of the dietary rules of Kashrut*.
I like to start off by explaining that there are, really, two questions used in determining if a chunk of meat is or isn't Kosher:
1. Is the animal it came from Kosher?
2. Was it killed a butchered properly?
Both of the answers must be yes for the meat to be Kosher. All plant products are Kosher; no animal has to die for those.
~~~
Part I - What is a Kosher animal?
There's a pretty big section of Leviticus dealing with this, and the King James translation is actually really good. It's in Chapter 11, if you want to read it. This section is basically lifted straight from the Torah.
- For land animals: it must have split hooves AND it must chew its cud.
- Pigs have split hooves but don't chew their cud, so they are out.
- Camels chew their cud but don't even have hooves, so they are out.
- Rabbits, which don't have hooves and chew their own crap instead of chewing cud, are very out.
- Mice, hamsters, gerbils, rats, cats, dogs, and horses are out. We can still keep them as pets, though. Just not for eating.
- Common domestic cattle, such as sheep, goats, and cows are all in. So is deer, although it isn't often eaten due to the problems with slaughtering it (see below). Yey!
- Pigs have split hooves but don't chew their cud, so they are out.
- Catfish, dolphins, and sharks all have fins but no scales (yes, I'm aware sharks have denticles but they're invisible to the naked eye and the ancients couldn't possibly have known about them), so they are all out.
- Lobsters, crayfish, crabs, etc. all have big armory scales but no fins, so they are out.
- Mussels, oysters, and eels have neither scales nor fins, so they are out.
- Tuna, salmon, tilapia, mackerels, etc. etc. are all in. Yey!
- Birds that are explicitly listed as not for eating are: eagles, ossifrages, ospreys, vultures and kites (although why you'd want to eat a carrion-eater is beyond me), ravens, owls (including "little owls" and "great owls"), night hawks, cuckoos, hawks, cormorants, swans, pelicans, geir eagles, storks, herons, lapwings, and bats (which are not actually birds, but do fly, so . . . )
- In addition, the rabbis have added large flightless birds such as ostriches and emus to this list, because they do not fly and those birds are mean.
- Domestic and delicious birds like chicken, turkeys, geese, pigeons, and ducks are all on the menu. So are wild birds like quail and pheasant. Yey!
~~~
Part II - Was is "proper killing"?
A warning: This bit is going to go into detail about animal guts. If that sort of thing squicks you, skip it.
First, even a Kosher animal can't be eaten if it dies on its own. This is presumably because an outwardly healthy animal might have died of a disease, and eating the meat would have passed said disease on. In the same vein, an animal that was killed by wild beasts is inedible, although why you'd want to eat something a lion has been snacking on is beyond me. Anyway. Healthy animal. Time to kill it.
There are three really important things that go through the neck of all land animals/birds. These are the spinal column, the windpipe, and the jugular. In a Kosher slaughter, the windpipe and the jugular must be severed in a single cut with an unserrated knife. The reason is that a good, sharp knife means the animal feels no pain, while at the same time the rapid blood loss means it dies almost instantaneously. This kind of humane slaughter was nearly unknown in the ancient Middle East; in fact, a common procedure was to cut a single leg off an animal and cauterize the stump, which allowed cooking a smaller portion of meat without the whole animal going bad. Ewwww.
Okay, meat. There are parts of the meat which are not Kosher and cannot be eaten. Blood is specifically excluded more than once in the Torah, because it carried the "soul" of the animal, and we eat bodies, not souls. Complete draining of the blood, accomplished mostly through salting, soaking, or broiling, must be finished no more than three days after the slaughter. Even eggs must be blood-free; a single blood spot on the yolk of an egg renders the whole thing inedible, and this does mean I separate every single egg I eat, even if I intend to scramble it, just to check. Any fat that is on the liver, kidneys, spleen, and large and small intestines is excluded because that fat is specifically designated as being the fat that is offered to God. Since people =/= God, we don't eat it. The sciatic nerve, and any meat directly in contact with said nerve, is prohibited in memory of Jacob's angel-wrestling, when he was permanently lamed due to an injury there. In the Old World, there were very skilled butchers who could cut this out; these days, it's more cost-efficient to just sell the hindquarters to the gentiles, who just don't care.
Obviously, this complex method of slaughter applies to meat and poultry (although in birds the nerve is much easier to get at and remove, so we can have thighs and drumsticks). Fish don't have any special rules, excepting that if your method of fish-catching left the fish bloody, you can't throw it back. Presumably, this is because in Israel most fish came from the Mediterranean, where blood in the water was a death sentence by shark anyway. Thus, canned tuna and tinned sardines are just fine, and make lunch-making so much easier.
And thus the complex rules of Kosher are made simple. [snerks] Yeah, right. Simple.
*Kosher literally means "something that has been done properly" and there are ton of commandments about what things are and are not Kosher. You hear about the dietary rules more because, really, when does the fact that having mold on the walls of your house isn't Kosher come up in everyday conversation?
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:45 am (UTC)Kosher laws that = a good rule anyway; not having mold on your walls. Though I'd think you'd have to try REALLY HARD to grow mold in the middle east, since it's dry and windy. I knew about not having mixed fibers in your clothing, got any other interesting environment Kosher laws?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 07:00 pm (UTC)Let's see, environmental laws? Well, nothing more relating to houses, but there are certain laws with regard to the land, which make somewhat good sense as crop rotation hadn't been invented yet. On the seventh, or Sabbath, year, you let the land lie fallow. Even when edible things grow, which in orchards and vineyards they certainly will, you don't harvest it or eat it. It's a year of rest, not of work. Yeeeeeey!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 07:01 pm (UTC)(Gooooooo Joe!)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-13 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 04:31 am (UTC)Thank you
Date: 2011-05-19 04:56 am (UTC)Glad I found this article.
Thanks!