Katra said:Ok, so what exactly defines "Kosher" meat?
There is no exact definition because each practitioner of a religion defines the precepts of the
religion in a different way. Look at the various definitions of "thou shalt not kill" if you want a
less confusing example.
In general, however,
The kosher laws fall into 4 broad categories:
1. kosher animals
2. kosher slaughter of animals
3. kosher combinations of foods
4. the dishes
5. Kosher animals include cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, turkey, salmon. Kosher animals
emphatically do NOT include pigs, rabbits, shrimp, lobsters, oysters, other shellfish, insects.
So anything made from a non-kosher animal is considered inappropriate to eat.
6. Whole books are written on the kosher slaughter of animals, but basically it means making sure
the animal is healthy before slaughter and cutting the throat with a sharp knife.
7. Meat products are not combined with milk products. They're not eaten at the same meal.
Individuals don't eat them within several hours of each other. They're not eaten off the same
plates or cooked in the same pots. So a hostess wouldn't serve a cheeseburger or a creamy
chicken soup. A guest who keeps kosher and has just arrived at someone's home might turn down an
offer of cookies and milk for a snack if he's just had meat for lunch. That doesn't mean the
cookies and milk aren't kosher, just that they're inappropriate for him at that moment. An apple
(neither meat nor milk) would be a better snack.
8. It isn't enough to avoid eating a non-kosher animal or a non-kosher combination. How separate is
separate, and how clean is clean? If the dishes had bacon on them in the morning, you wouldn't
just wash the plate and consider it O.K. for a kosher meal that afternoon. Keeping kosher
extends to keeping watch over the whole food production process.
It's that 4th consideration where people tend to disagree the most. Some people keep kosher at home,
but don't care too much about the dishes when they go out. So they'll eat a vegetarian meal in a
restaurant without worrying about whether the restaurant also serves non-kosher meat on those same
plates. Others would never eat at a non-kosher restaurant.
If you imagine people living out on a farm getting most of their food products locally and from
scratch, keeping kosher doesn't sound like a big deal. It means avoiding some recipes and eating 3
meals a day. Most people who have never kept kosher would find nothing too terribly weird about
visiting a kosher home and eating kosher meals for a while. Breakfast would still consist of eggs,
cereal, fruit, milk in coffee, butter on toast (a dairy meal). Lunch would still consist of salad or
a cheese sandwich in the summer (dairy) or maybe a beef soup in winter (meat). Dinner would be meat,
vegetables, potatoes (no butter or sour cream on the potatoes). None of that is shockingly unusual.
--Lia