What Is Kosher?

What does it mean to keep Kosher? This is a question that many non-Jews, and Jews alike, are still grappling with the answer to. Is kosher a type of food? Is it a blessing? Is it a way of life?

What makes someone, or something, kosher?

This blog post will give a basic overview of what it means to keep kosher, what kosher laws are, and what those laws translate to for practical use.

Kosher, or “Kashrut,” refers to Jewish dietary laws that have been a part of Jewish culture since the creation of the Torah. Today, many Jewish people continue to keep kosher, while others don’t. Different individuals and groups interpret the importance of keeping kosher differently. (Brewer 2009)

You are not required to be Jewish to abide by the specific kosher laws (Carter isn’t Jewish and we practiced kosher cooking for this blog), but it is traditionally only the Jewish people who maintain these dietary rules.

The following are the kosher dietary laws, according to Tracey Rich’s “Kashrut: Jewish Dietary Laws”:

People can only eat land mammals if they have cloven hooves and chew their cud. If it doesn’t do both of these things, then the animal is forbidden.

Not kosher: The camel, the rock badger, the hare, and the pig. These animals aren't kosher because each lacks one of the aforementioned qualities.

Kosher: Cattle, sheep, goats, deer, and bison.


Of water animals, anything that has both fins and scales is considered kosher.

Not kosher: Shellfish, such as lobster, oysters, shrimps, clams, and crab.

Kosher: Fish like tuna, carp, salmon, and heron.


The bird category is less clear. The Torah provides a list of the following forbidden birds but omits a description of why they are forbidden.

Not kosher: Bat, cuckoo, eagle, hawk, heron, kite, lapwing, ostrich, owl, pelican, stork, swan, and vulture.

Kosher: Capon, chicken, dove, duck, goose, pigeon, and turkey.


Any product derived from these forbidden animals such as their milk, eggs, fat, or organs is also forbidden by kosher laws. For example, rennet, an enzyme used to harden cheese, is usually obtained from non-kosher animals. This makes kosher cheese difficult to find. (Luban, p.1)

There are many specific kosher rules in regards to animal slaughtering. Kosher ritual slaughter, known as shechitah, is a method of slaughter that uses a quick, deep stroke across the throat of the animal with a perfectly sharp blade that has no nicks or unevenness. (Rich 2007) The idea behind this method is that it causes a painless death that results in unconsciousness in two seconds. The method is widely recognized as the most humane of slaughtering methods. All blood must be drained from meat and poultry or broiled out of it before it is eaten. (Glazer, p.317)

Separation of meat and dairy is another important aspect of keeping kosher. Meat (the flesh of birds and mammals) cannot be eaten alongside or combined with dairy. Meat must be cooked separately from dairy products, as well as served on separate dishes with separate utensils, during a separate meal. People are advised to wait 3-6 hours after eating meat before they eat dairy. However, people are allowed to consume meat soon after consuming diary, if they wash out their mouths. (Glazer, p.318) These meat and dairy restrictions are the law because the Torah tells us “not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk” on three separate occasions. Fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables and grains can be eaten with either meat or dairy. (Rich 2007)

Rabbis or other “religious figures do not bless food to make it kosher. Blessings are made over food before eating it, but these blessings have nothing to do with making the food kosher.” (Rich 2007) Many types of foods can be kosher if they are prepared according to the aforementioned dietary laws.

The Torah does not tell Jewish people exactly why they should obey these dietary laws. Some have even “suggested that the laws of kashrut fall into the category of "chukkim," laws for which there is no reason.” (Rich 2007) No one really knows for sure why kosher laws were originally created, but there have been various interpretations as to why these laws are important and how they should be followed today. (Brewer 2009)

For this blog, we have cooked 10 different kosher recipes (Nathan, p.48-390), showing how Jews living in America have adjusted traditional recipes to make them their own.

As Isaac Arbabanel said, centuries ago, “the laws of kashrut did not come to heal bodies, but to seek the health of the soul.” (Glazer, p.317)

If you’d like to learn more about keeping kosher and kosher laws, please refer to this link.

-Carter & Sarah

Works Cited:

Brewer, Aaron. "Judaism." Jewish Recipes: Living Kosher is like Living like a Jew. N.p., Oct. 2009. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. .

Glazer, Phyllis, and Miriyam Glazer. Jewish Festival Cooking. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004. Print.

Luban, Yaakov. "The Kosher Primer." OUKosher. N.p. .n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2010.

Nathan, Joan. Jewish Cooking in America. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994.
Print.

Rich, Tracey. "Kashrut: Jewish Dietary Laws." Judaism 101. N.p., 2007. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. .

Polish Mushroom and Sour Cream Dip

This recipe took us about 45 minutes to make, including prep and cook time.

Recipe:

2 onions, diced

½ stick salted butter

1 pound of mushrooms, coarsely chopped

Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons fresh dill

Paprika to taste

Instructions: (Makes about three cups)

1. In a frying pan sauté the onions in 2 tablespoons of the butter until they are golden. Remove from the pan and set aside.

2. Place the remaining butter in the pan and add the mushrooms. Saute for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the water evaporates.

3. Mix the onions and the mushrooms together in a serving bowl, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Fold in the sour cream and sprinkle with fresh dill and paprika. Serve as a dip with dark rye bread, pita, or fresh vegetables.

Tip: Serve with pita bread.

This kosher appetizer is a specialty of Holocaust survivor Helen Ciesla Covensky. (Nathan, p. 59)

It was very fairly easy to make. Even Sarah, who is a horrible cook, was able to figure it out! The dip turned out really well and after it was finished, we ate most of it and kept the rest for a few days in the refrigerator, before it went bad and we had to throw it away.

Although the dip was very tasty, our favorite thing about it was the presentation. The paprika and dill, sprinkled on the top, turned a sloppy looking dish into something pretty!

-Carter & Sarah

(This dish was adapted from a recipe on page 59 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Fluffy Matzah Balls

This recipe took us about 4 hours to make, including prep and cook time.

Recipe:

4 large eggs

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

½ cup seltzer water

1 cup matzah meal

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions: (Makes about 12 balls)

1. Mix the eggs well with a fork. Add the chicken fat or oil, soda water, matzah meal, and salt and pepper and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for several hours.

2. Dip your hands in cold water and make about 12 balls slightly smaller than ping-pong balls.

3. Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Add salt and place the matzah balls in the water. Cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until soft.

This recipe makes light and airy matzah balls. Sarah, who grew up eating matzah balls, absolutely loved them. Carter had never tasted or seen matzah balls before we cooked them, so he needed a little convincing. After we put them in some soup, he enjoyed them much more.

This recipe is fun to cook because it requires to to get your hands dirty. Very dirty! We made all the balls by hand and they were extremely messy and sticky. But that's part of the fun of making them!

We actually had a video of Sarah dropping the balls into the boiling water and burning herself, but unfortuantlly the video was accidently deleted, so we were unable to post it.

We're very proud of the outcome of this reciepe and highly reccomend it if you're planning on making matzah balls anytime soon.

-Sarah & Carter

(This dish was adapted from a recipe on page 110 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Bookie’s Chopped Chicken Liver

This recipe took us about 30 minutes to make, including prep and cook time.

Recipe:

4 large eggs

3 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 medium onions, diced

1-pound fresh chicken livers

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions: (Makes about 10-12 servings)

1. Put the eggs in cold water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Cool rapidly in iced water and peel.

2. Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet. Sauté the onions over a high heat for about 5 minutes, until the onions start turning brown.

3. Add the chicken livers to the sautéed onions and cook, tossing the livers occasionally, until they are firm, about 5 minutes.

4. Chop together the livers, hard-boiled eggs, sliced or quartered, and the sautéed onions. Season with salt and pepper.

This is a fairly ordinary chopped chicken liver appetizer. Carter found it quite tasty. Sarah, who finds the word "liver" extremely suspicious, was too scared to taste it.

-Sarah & Carter

(This recipe was adapted from page 48 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

An adaptation of Judah Benjamin’s Friday Night Chicken with Peppers

This recipe took us about an hour and a half to make, including prep and cook time.

Recipe:

4 chicken breasts

Salt and pepper

¼ cup olive oil

2 large onions, quartered

1 teaspoon of finely chopped garlic

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

1 yellow pepper

½ cupped diced smoked turkey pastrami

3 medium tomatoes

12 black olives, pitted and cut in half

Instructions: (Makes about six servings)

1. Peel and core the apples. Dice them and sprinkle ¼ cup of sugar and the cinnamon over them.
2. Pour boiling milk over the white bread, cover, and let soak a few minutes. Drain off the excess milk and add the melted butter, remaining sugar, yolks of eggs, chopped almonds, and the apples.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture.
4. Grease a 9inch bundt pan and sprinkle with fine breadcrumbs. Pour the mixture into the pan and bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for 1 hour or until done. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce.

We made this kosher recipe for dinner. It was one of the more attractive dishes that we made, thanks to the beautiful array of colored veggies. Although it was yummy, a chicken and vegetable stir-fry is just as delicious, and takes a quarter of the time to make as this dish did.

-Sarah & Carter

(This recipe was adapted from page 216 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Potatonik

This recipe took us around 3 hours to make, including prep and baking time.

Recipe:

1 package of active dry yeast

¼ cup warm water

Pinch of sugar

2 ½ lbs of potatoes

2 ½ cups of all purpose flour

1 ½ tablespoons of salt

2 medium onions sliced thin in circles

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Instructions: (Makes about 10 servings)

1. Place yeast in a bowl with the water and sugar and let it sit for about 10 minutes or until it starts to bubble slightly.

2. Peel and grate the potatoes and place with the flour in a mixing bowl and add the yeast mixture with the salt. Mix all ingredients well and let rise, covered, in a greased bowl for 45 minutes.

3. Layer the onions in a 9x12 inch greased baking dish. Cover with the potato flour mixture and flatten out.

4. Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for about 10 minutes.

5. Brush with the oil and continue baking for about 35 more minutes or until golden and crisp.

Tip: You can serve this as a snack, a starch with your meal, or even as a crispy hors d’oeuvre with drinks. Like potato pancakes, also yummy with applesauce or sour cream.

The NY Times Bitten Blog suggests that instead of making several small latkes, one can make one large potatonik instead. According to the blog, "the attractions of this method are many: you can cook a huge one — the equivalent of probably 20 latkes — in 40 minutes; it can be made in advance by a half-hour and still be warm when you serve it; and it isn’t bad cooled off, either."

In our opinion, although the potatonik was tasty, the latkes we made were much tastier. But it's true, this potatonik reciepe does help you produce a potato side dish in large qauntities.

-Carter & Sarah

(This recipe was adapted from page 246 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Janos Wilder’s New American Haroset

This recipe took us around 40 minutes to make, including prep and cook time.

Recipe:

2 granny smith apples

Juice of half a lemon

½ cup fresh mango

½ cup almonds

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of honey

3 tablespoons of Manischewitz blackberry wine

Instructions: (Makes about two cups)

1. Peel, core, and dice the apples and sprinkle with the lemon juice.

2. Peel and dice the mango.

3. Chop the almonds.

4. Place all ingredients in a food processor. Pulse once or twice just to break up. Let sit for the flavors to soak in.


Traditional haroset is served as one of the main foods on the Passover Seder plate, representing the “mortar the Jews used to build Egyptian structures.” (Pindling, 2010)

This haroset, however, is a variation of the traditional recipe. Instead of using pecans, we used almonds (we forgot to buy the pecans!) and we also incorporated mangoes, just to be creative.

Carter had never tasted haroset before we made it for this project. Although the mixture looked to him like a random concoction of ingredients, he was a good sport and agreed to try it. To Sarah’s surprise (and his own), he really liked it.

Sarah was excited to make it from the beginning because it’s always been her favorite thing on the Passover table (except for the Manishewitz, naturally!).

-Sarah & Carter

(This recipe was adapted from page 390 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Crispy Traditional Potato Pancakes

This recipe took us about one and a half hours to make, including prep time.

Recipe:

2 lbs baking potatoes

1 medium onion

1 large egg-beaten

Salt and freshly ground paper to taste

Vegetable oil for frying

Instructions: (Makes about 2 dozen pancakes)

1. Peel the potatoes and put in cold water. Using a grater, grate the potatoes and onions.

2. Mix the grated potatoes and onion together. Add the egg, salt and pepper.

3. Heat a griddle or non-stick pan and coat with a thin film of vegetable oil. Take about 2 tablespoons of the potato mixture in the palm of your hand and flatten as best as you can. Place the potato mixture on the griddle, flatten with a large spatula, and fry for a few minutes while golden. Flip the pancakes over and brown the other side. Serve immediately.

Tip: You can also freeze the potato pancakes and crisp them up in a 350-degree oven at a later time.

This recipe makes the pancakes thin and crisp, just the way we like ‘em! But this is only possible if you squeeze out as much water as possible from the grated potato and omit flour or matzah meal as fillers, and gently flatten the pancakes on a very hot skillet. (Nathan, p. 259)

We actually tried cooking the pancakes a few different ways. First, we made them in a pan on the stove. Then, we put some in a baking dish and baked them in the oven. Then we made some pancakes on the George Foreman grill. It was quite the adventure! If you’re only trying to make a few pancakes (as opposed to the two dozen that this recipe makes), we found that the George Foreman grill is the easiest way to do it.

Sarah went to the store and picked up some applesauce to serve the pancakes with. The sweet apple flavor and the salty pancakes made the perfect combination.

We ended up making a tremendous amount of pancakes, so we shared them with Carter’s roommates. They certainly weren’t complaining!

Yummy!

-Sarah & Carter

(This recipe was adapted from page 259 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Baked Bananas

Before we cooked them:

After they'd been cooked:

This recipe took us about 30 minutes to make, including prep and cook time.

Recipe:

6 firm bananas

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

½ cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons of butter or margarine

Instructions: (Makes 8 servings)

1. Arrange whole peeled bananas on butter baking dish.
2. Sprinkle with lemon juice and brown sugar. Dot with butter.
3. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for about 25 minutes or until bananas are hot and sugar is melted.
4. Serve hot with whipped cream.

In the south, baked bananas were often served at the Passover table. The above recipe is adapted from “What’s Cooking with the Millsteins,” a privately published cookbook from Natchez, Mississippi. (Nathan, p. 362)

This was not our favorite dish. Unfortunately, the bananas came out soggy and brown.

Hopefully, you’ll have better luck than we did!

-Carter & Sarah

(This recipe was adapted from page 362 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Alsatian Apple Charlotte

This recipe took about two hours for us to make, including prep and cooking time.

Recipe:

2 pounds of granny smith apples

1 ¼ cup of sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

4 cups boiled milk

12 slices challah bread, crust removed

2 tablespoons unsalted melted butter

3 large eggs

½ pounds chopped almonds

Breadcrumbs

Instructions: (Makes 8 servings)

1. Peel and core the apples. Dice them and sprinkle ¼ cup of sugar and the cinnamon over them.
2. Pour boiling milk over the white bread, cover, and let soak a few minutes. Drain off the excess milk and add the melted butter, remaining sugar, yolks of eggs, chopped almonds, and the apples.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture.
4. Grease a 9inch bundt pan and sprinkle with fine breadcrumbs. Pour the mixture into the pan and bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for 1 hour or until done. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce.

This old dessert recipe is a classic that is served warm in Jewish homes in France and southern Germany. It’s often made after Shabbat, with left-over challah bread. (Nathan, p. 321)

It was absolute chaos when we were making this dish! At the same time Carter was peeling the apples, Sarah was taking the crust off of the challah bread. The kitchen was a mess!

By the time Carter finished peeling the two pounds of apples, he swore he’d never peel another apple again. (Then Sarah reminded him that we were making Haroset next and that requires peeling apples, too. He was not happy.)

However, this dish turned out to be one of our favorites. It was also very well received by Carter’s roommates. Unfortunately, we forgot to buy vanilla ice cream to go with it so we had to settle for whipped cream. It was still delicious though.

-Carter & Sarah

(This recipe was adapted from page 321 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")

Brooklyn Egg Cream

This recipe took us about 15 minutes to make, including prep and "cook" time.

Recipe:

1/2 cup milk

1 12 ounce Coca Cola glass

1/4 cup seltzer water

3/4 inch chocolate flavor syrup

Instructions (makes one glass):

1. Chill glass in freezer for 10 minutes.

2. Pour milk into the chilled glass.

3. Shoot the seltzer water into the milk hard, until a white head reaches the top of the glass. Then pour in the syrup very slowly and gradually stir it on the bottom so you don't disturb the foam on the top. When you pull the spoon out, the chocolate should be on the bottom and white foam should be on the top. Adjust the amount of chocolate depending on how sweet you want it.


When we first talked about making this drink, Carter's roommate chimed in to tell us how much he loved egg creams! He said that his Jewish mother used to make them for him as a child, because she grew up drinking them in New York. This convinced us that this was the right dish to top off our cookbook!

To be an egg cream connoisseur you had to have grown up near a candy store watching the soda jerk make his version. Part of the process is getting a stream of seltzer at high pressure, to make it foamy. (Nathan, p. 380)

And that is where we failed miserably. When Sarah opened the seltzer water, it exploded everywhere and got into every nook and cranny of Carter's kitchen, except the glass it was aimed at. We tried shaking the seltzer water bottle to make it foamy again, but it didn't work the way we'd hoped. So, sadly, we had to settle for foamless egg creams, which don't taste nearly as good!

Hopefully, you'll have better luck than we did!

-Sarah & Carter

(This recipe was adapted from page 380 of Joan Nathan's book "Jewish Cooking in America")