On Keeping Kosher in Interfaith Environments

[debka_notion]

A good food related giggle. The only two foods (besides the liquids) that I could eat at the family holiday event we ran this afternoon: the cut vegetables (sans the dip) and the chocolate Santas. (My colleagues were baffled by the fact that I couldn't eat the latkes, since they were Jewish Food.)

However, the program went really well- we even got lots of parent compliments, and the flame hats that I spent a chunk of my morning preparing were adorable. And one of my kids and her family gave me a little teacher gift, complete with adorably tacky poem. Teacher gifts are silly things as a general concept, but the thought is utterly charming. So is this child (a little silly, and very charming.)

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, was it that you couldn't eat any of the food because it came from non-kosher kitchens, or something like that, or was it that the food (even the latkes) had something trafe in it, like lard?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Just that it came from non-kosher kitchens, and mostly industrial non-kosher kitchens, at that- those are in some ways more problematic than personal kitchens... There were one or two things that might have been actually problematic (blue cheese dip, for example- cheese is complicated, and blue cheese is apparently more so- it's more likely to have actual animal rennet involved, making it actually treif). As for the latkes, they were coming from a deli, and being served with sour cream- how likely is it that a deli is deep frying their latkes in for-latkes-only oil, versus deep-frying say, meat products or products that have been in contact with meat in that same oil? That's the general worry.

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Ah. I see. All valid concerns. I was just curious.

And thanks for explaining the blue cheese thing. I knew blue cheese was a no-go, and so I've never had it, but never knew why.