Kosher for Everybody: The Complete Guide to Understanding, Shopping, Cooking, and Eating the Kosher Way (Arthur Kurzweil Book)

273 Pages·2004·0.83 MB·English

by  Trudy Garfunkel

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Kosher for
Everybody
The Complete Guide to
Understanding, Shopping,
Cooking, and Eating
the Kosher Way
Trudy Garfunkel
An Arthur Kurzweil Book

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Garfunkel.ffirs 6/28/04 12:59 PM Page ii
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Kosher for
Everybody
The Complete Guide to
Understanding, Shopping,
Cooking, and Eating
the Kosher Way
Trudy Garfunkel
An Arthur Kurzweil Book
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Copyright © 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garfunkel, Trudy.
Kosher for everybody: the complete guide to understanding, shopping, cooking, and eating
the kosher way / Trudy Garfunkel.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“An Arthur Kurzweil book.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7879-7587-7 (alk. paper)
1. Kosher food. 2. Jews—Dietary laws. I. Title.
BM710.G36 2004
296.7'3—dc22
2004006419
Printed in the United States of America
FIRSTEDITION
PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Author to Reader 1
Glossary 5
1. What Is Kosher? 7
2. A Brief History of Kosher Foods in America 19
3. Understanding the Kosher Symbols 25
4. The Growth of Kosher Certification 33
5. Meats and Poultry 47
6. Wine and Spirits 57
7. Kosher and Healthy 67
8. Kosher for Vegetarians 83
9. Kosher for the Lactose-Intolerant 93
10. Cooking Kosher 101
Frittatas and Eggs a Soups a Appetizers and Salads
Pasta and Noodles a Potatoes a Rice a Vegetables
Meat a Fish a Chicken a Cookies and Pastry
11. Kosher Sources 155
Hotels, Resorts, Travel Agents, and Tour Guides
Kosher Camps a Kosher by Mail a Restaurants and Caterers
Bakeries, Butchers, Candy, Chocolates, and Markets
Other Resources for the Kosher Consumer
Notes 255
Bibliography 263
The Author 265
v
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For Aunt Chip—with love and appreciation
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Author to Reader
kosheradj.Honest; authentic; valid; ethical;
fulfilling the minimum requirements of honesty or
ethics. From kosher= clean and acceptable,
according to Jewish dietary laws. (Word taken from
Hebrew to Yiddish to English.)
—The Dictionary of American Slang
You don’t have to be Jewish to buy and eat kosher food. In fact, only
8 percent of the consumers who purchase kosher food in the United
States do so for religious reasons. In the past decade, kosher has
become one of the fastest-growing and hottest trends in the food
industry. Eighty thousand products in the United States are already
certified kosher, and a thousand new products are added to the list
each year.
Kosher is big business: the U.S. market for kosher food is approx-
imately $7.5 billion annually. Over 9,200 companies—including
such giants as Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Gen-
eral Mills, Hershey, Nabisco, Heinz, and Dannon—have spent
time, effort, and money to earn the coveted kosher certification.
Why has kosher become so popular? There are a number of rea-
sons. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of people going
back to their Jewish roots and becoming more observant of kosher
laws. American Jews today may observe the laws of kashrut in vary-
ing degrees. Strictly kosher observant Jews follow all the dietary
laws to the letter. Others may practice “biblical kashrut,” abstain-
ing only from foods forbidden in the Bible. Still others buy only
1
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2 KOSHERFOREVERYBODY
kosher meats and poultry and do not eat meat and milk products at
the same meal. And then there are Jews who become vegetarians,
following the commandments to revere all animal life. (There are
several branches of Judaism, with differing interpretations and views
on keeping kosher. Orthodox and Conservative branches, practic-
ing so-called rabbinic kashrut, expect their adherents to follow all
the dietary laws as set down in the Bible and in the later rabbinic
commentaries. Both Reform Judaism, a movement that began in
nineteenth-century Germany as a way to reconcile tradition with
modernity, and Reconstructionism, a twentieth-century American
movement that sees Judaism as an evolving religion, affirm the
importance of a kosher lifestyle but allow for a more lenient inter-
pretation. Reform Judaism allows its members to decide which laws
to follow, although in 1999, it began encouraging a more encom-
passing reconsideration of this traditional observance; Reconstruc-
tionists believe that the dietary laws are to be followed only if the
individual wishes to follow them.)
Other groups also purchase kosher foods to remain true to their
religious beliefs. These include six million American Muslims, who
follow dietary laws similar to those of observant Jews, and eight
hundred thousand American Seventh-day Adventists, who are
encouraged to follow the dietary guidelines given in the Bible—the
basis of kosher.
Another reason for the burgeoning kosher market is the grow-
ing number of health-conscious consumers who believe that
because kosher certification is given by independent, nongovern-
mental agencies (and certification has its own strict labeling laws
and stringent meat and poultry inspection), it represents a kind of
extra “Good Housekeeping seal of approval.” For them, buying and
eating kosher means healthier, safer food. Then there are the mil-
lions of Americans who are vegetarians. And the 2 to 3 percent of
the American population who suffer from a variety of allergies or
food intolerances: people who are allergic to shellfish or milk, for
example, and who, like vegetarians, must know exactly what ingre-
dients are in the processed foods they buy.