I didn’t see this topic in the “special diets” forums. I hope this is the right place to post it!
I am Jewish by birth, and I identify as Jewish although I haven’t set foot in shul since I was thirteen (my bar-Mitzvah). My parents were both raised in kosher households; two iceboxes, two sets of dishes (my dad’s mother kept three sets of dishes, because Grandpa liked rare, bloody steaks. Obviously treyf.) I don’t keep kosher at all, but being raised Jewish has given me an aversion to pork! I do prepare it occasionally, and I love breakfast sausages. While I don’t keep kosher, it interests me because 1) it’s cooking! And 2) the kosher tradition is part of my cultural roots. I mentioned halal in the title, but I don’t know anything about it!
My question is this, and it’s probably a question for a rabbi, not a chef. The restriction for mixing milk and dairy comes from one commandment in Leviticus: You shall not cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk. That’s a paraphrase, I’m sure; I’m no Talmudic scholar. But I do know that all the restrictions of mixing meat and dairy come from that one commandment. All the restrictions are what Jewish scholars call “a fence around the Torah.” If you can’t mix any meat with any dairy product, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that you’ll be boiling a kid in it’s mother’s milk. (There are other reasons behind the meat\dairy restrictions, more logical and health-based, but even those reasons have become obsolete with modern preserving, pasteurizing and preserving techniques, and non-wood kitchen appliances and plates. But that came after the fact.)
But one is not allowed to cook chicken in a cream sauce, which is ridiculous, because chickens lay eggs and don’t lactate. There’s no way to cook a chick in its mother’s milk; it’s mother doesn’t have any!
So, are there any Talmudic or Torah scholars out there who are also cooks? Can you tell me why[\I] chicken in a cream sauce is treyf, if there’s no such thing as “chicken milk?”
I am Jewish by birth, and I identify as Jewish although I haven’t set foot in shul since I was thirteen (my bar-Mitzvah). My parents were both raised in kosher households; two iceboxes, two sets of dishes (my dad’s mother kept three sets of dishes, because Grandpa liked rare, bloody steaks. Obviously treyf.) I don’t keep kosher at all, but being raised Jewish has given me an aversion to pork! I do prepare it occasionally, and I love breakfast sausages. While I don’t keep kosher, it interests me because 1) it’s cooking! And 2) the kosher tradition is part of my cultural roots. I mentioned halal in the title, but I don’t know anything about it!
My question is this, and it’s probably a question for a rabbi, not a chef. The restriction for mixing milk and dairy comes from one commandment in Leviticus: You shall not cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk. That’s a paraphrase, I’m sure; I’m no Talmudic scholar. But I do know that all the restrictions of mixing meat and dairy come from that one commandment. All the restrictions are what Jewish scholars call “a fence around the Torah.” If you can’t mix any meat with any dairy product, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that you’ll be boiling a kid in it’s mother’s milk. (There are other reasons behind the meat\dairy restrictions, more logical and health-based, but even those reasons have become obsolete with modern preserving, pasteurizing and preserving techniques, and non-wood kitchen appliances and plates. But that came after the fact.)
But one is not allowed to cook chicken in a cream sauce, which is ridiculous, because chickens lay eggs and don’t lactate. There’s no way to cook a chick in its mother’s milk; it’s mother doesn’t have any!
So, are there any Talmudic or Torah scholars out there who are also cooks? Can you tell me why[\I] chicken in a cream sauce is treyf, if there’s no such thing as “chicken milk?”
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