Can someone explain kosher to me ?!
Answers: I'm gonna be a nanny next week for a family who says they eat "kosher" food. Now knowing me i was thinking pickels, obviously i know nothing about Kosher. Can someone explain anything and everything they know about this ? cause I will sometimes have to cook for them. The only thing they told me was they don't mix meat and dairy, I don't even know why that, but that's doable.
You can't mix dairy products and meat in one dish-- the specific injunction is against boiling a calf/baby animal in its own mother's milk, which would be cruel, so just to be sure, Jewish Kosher diet prohibits mixing ANY milk with ANY meat. So no cheeseburger, steak w/ white gravy, etc. They probably have two separate sets of dishes-- one set for foods containing milk/dairy, one set for foods containing meat, and if you get a speck of milk on a meat dish, it has to be thrown out, so be careful.
Also: Kosher = no pork, no shellfish (shrimp, lobster), no meat from animals with cloven hooves, (or animals that creep and crawl on the ground, like snakes... alligators-- though the creepie-crawlie thing probably won't come up! lol)
Meat has to be blessed by a rabbi, specially butchered, drained of blood, and stamped 'Pareve'
Kosher food products will either be labeled 'Kosher', 'K' in a circle, or 'Pareve.'
some traditional Jewish foods: potato latkes/pancakes (served w/ applesauce & sour cream), potato knishes, cherry-cheese blintzes, chopped liver, matzoh bre (like french toast, w. matzoh), matzoh bread, matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish, noodle kugel, chocolate egg cream, cream soda, corned beef sandwich on rye w/ horseradish mustard (sometimes w/ pickled tomatoes on the side, as at 'Wolf's Delicatessen' in NYC), hammentaschen, bagel w. 'schmear' of cream cheese, etc., etc... yum!
Haha it is actually pretty easy to understand. The basic meaning of Kosher is that you do not mix meat and milk together when you are eating. Like you cannot eat a cheeseburger. Also, if you eat meat you need to wait a certain amount of time to eat dairy depending on the family. And same with dairy. There are a lot of other things more further into it but that is the basic rule. You should talk to the family about their certain rules of them being Kosher. Every person is different.
it is jewish term for food that has been blessed by a rabi. at one time the rabis would check to make sure the food was safe to eat.
From what I know about the rules of a kosher diet...fish and meat can not be served together, dairy and meat can not be served together, pig and rabbit can not be eaten at all and all meat that is eaten has to have been slaughtered humanely (humane slaughter is an oxymoron, I know).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_food...
Buy alot of hotdogs
best to go with the pickles just to be safe
hopefully this explains a little bit of what kosher is!!
It's sort of like a diet (the people who are kosher want to be fit)The word kosher means proper or acceptable, and it has informally entered the english language with that in meaning kosher laws have their orgin in the bible, and are detailed in the Talmud and other codes of jewish traditions.
Foods that aren't kosher: animals. fowl and fish (such as pork and rabbit, eagle, owl, catfish and sturgeon) and any shellfish, insect or reptile.
In addition, kosher species of meat and fowl must be slaughtered in a prescribed manner, and meat and dairy products may not be manufactured or consumed together.
Here are some recipes:
Rolled Cabbage:
1 large head cabbage
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup cooked rice
1/2 onion grated
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/4 teaspoon sage
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar
Remove core from cabbage and cover with boiling water; let stand for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix ground beef and next five ingredients. Stir in 1 tablespoon tomato paste.
Drain cabbage and carefully remove 12 large leaves. Place a heaping tablespoon of meat mixture on each leaf. Tuck in the sides and carefully roll up the cabbage leaves. If necessary, fasten ends with wooden picks or tie with white thread.
Shred remaining cabbage and place on the bottom of a heavy saucepan or electric skillet. Carefully place cabbage rolls on shredded cabbage. Combine remaining tomato paste and next four ingredients; pour over cabbage rolls. Cover and simmer over low heat 1 hour.
Uncover, pour a mixture of brown sugar and vinegar over all, and simmer 30 minutes
Goulash Soup:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound boneless stew meat, cut into small cubes, or 1 pound ground meat
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 large onion, chopped
1 red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 cup chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
6 cups hot water
juice of 1 lemon
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon caraway seed
2 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika
Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or other heavy bottomed pan. Dredge the meat with the flour, salt, and pepper.
Brown the meat in the hot oil, and then add the chopped vegetables.
Cook and stir a few minutes, and then add the remaining ingredients.
Reduce the heat to simmer and allow to gently cook for about 2 hours, or until the flavors have blended.
Correct seasonings and serve.
Rib Roast and potatoes:
5 pounds Kosher rib roast
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 onion, sliced
4 potatoes, cut in half
paprika
Combine, flour, salt, pepper, celery salt, mustard and garlic powder. Rub into meat.
Cover bottom of roaster with onions. Lay roast on top. Surround with potatoes.
Sprinkle paprika on potatoes. Add 2 cups water.
Cook for 2 hours uncovered at 350 degrees. Baste and turn several times.
Note: make sure none of the ingredient you use are dairy
You might want to also check out this website for more recipes:
www.jewishrecipes.org
If you want to keep your job, you'd better do some fast research on Kosher Laws. I've included a link to start you out. When I was young, I babysat for a rabbi's kids. They kept a Kosher kitchen. In their house, the kitchen was divided into half. One side was for meat, the other was for dairy. It made it easy to keep the two food groups completely separated. They had two refrigerators, one on each side and a double sink. The kitchen linens and dishes were on the side they were used for. Don't know if your house will be as strict, but if you respect their traditions,and are willing to learn, you will do fine.
Overview: Kosher Food:
Ask an average person to describe kosher food and they might say it is food "blessed by a rabbi." The word "kosher," however, is Hebrew for "fit" or "appropriate" and describes the food that is suitable for a Jew to eat. With its roots in the Hebrew Bible, the system of defining which foods are kosher was developed by the rabbis of late antiquity. Its application to changing realities has been the work of subsequent generations, including our own.
Close readers of the Torah might notice that according to the book of Genesis, vegetarianism was commanded by God as the ideal diet (see Genesis 1:29). However, in the course of the biblical narratives, this changed to include a variety of different animals. According to the Torah (Leviticus, chapter 11), only certain kinds of animals are considered inherently kosher. For land animals, any creature that both chews its cud and has split hooves is kosher. For sea creatures, any fish that has both fins and scales is acceptable, and for birds, only those birds approved by the Torah (or others that later authorities have judged to be like them, a list that excludes scavengers and birds of prey). In addition, it is repeated three times in the Torah that it is forbidden to cook a baby goat in its own mother's milk.
The rabbis in the Talmud further developed these principles of kashrut. In order to consume kosher land animals and birds, it is necessary to slaughter them in a prescribed way, in a manner that has been described as a more humane method than is practiced commercially. In addition, the prohibition of cooking a baby goat in its own mother's milk is the basis for the complete, physical, hermetic separation of all milk and meat products. These are the fundamental elements of kashrut.
All questions, problems or issues about keeping kosher ultimately revolve around the basic principles of kashrut described above. Usually, the questions have to do with the last basic element, the complete separation of milk and meat products. The use of different sets of dishes and pots and pans, developed in order to ensure a greater separation between milk and meat foods. This is also the basis of waiting several hours after eating a meat dish before eating a dairy product, so that the two types of food shouldn't even mix together in our stomachs! (A much shorter wait is required after some dairy foods before consuming meat.)
Whether a particular food is considered kosher or not usually has to do with whether any substance or product used in its manufacture was derived from a non-kosher animal or even an animal that is kosher but was not slaughtered in the prescribed manner. Rabbinic supervision of the production of food (a practiced called hashgachah) enables it to carry a "seal of approval" (but no, it is not "blessed by a rabbi").
There are three categories of kosher foods:
1) dairy foods, such as cheese, milk, yogurt, ice cream, etc.
2) meat foods, which includes all kosher animals and fowl slaughtered in the prescribed manner, and their derivative products.
3) pareve foods, using a Yiddish word meaning "neutral." These are foods that are neither dairy nor meat, such as eggs and fish, tofu, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables, and the like, provided they are not prepared with any milk or meat products.
In keeping kosher, it is necessary to keep all dairy and meat foods completely separate. Pareve foods, however, may be mixed in and served with either category of food since these foods are neither milk nor meat.
Note:
How to Keep Kosher: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Jewish Dietary Laws, by Lise Stern (William Morrow, 2004). An easy-to-read, transdenominational guide to kashrut, with an emphasis on the practical.
hope this helps. good luck.
kosher means blessed by a rabbi