The meat of those animals that chew cud and have paired hooves is considered kosher: sheep, goats, cows, deer. You cannot include in your diet the meat of a pig, dog, rabbit, cat, horse, bear, camel, whale, seal, lion and other animals that belong to the class of carnivores. Do not eat meat from a sick animal, or the meat of an animal that was improperly slaughtered, as well as the meat of an animal that died a natural death.

To make meat kosher, the animal is slaughtered in such a way as to cause it as little pain and suffering as possible - in one movement using a sharp knife, and then all the blood is removed: for this, the meat is soaked in water, salted and placed on a wire rack so that the remaining blood drips off, and after an hour, rinse well.

According to the Jewish law 'Do not eat blood (blood is considered to be a sign of a living being)' liver is not permissible to boil or fry in a frying pan: it can only be cooked over an open fire - the product is cut and washed with water, salted and fried over the fire, after heat treatment the offal should be rinse again with water. Only after the manipulations have been completed is it allowed to be consumed or cooked (frying) in a special container for meat.

The thighs of an animal from which the sciatic nerves have not been removed, as well as the fat near the stomach, are not suitable for food. According to the commandment: “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (Ex. 23:19), you cannot mix meat and milk, you can even eat these products only with a time interval of 6 hours, and the interval between meals from milk and meat is no less two. The word “milk” in this commandment means all dairy products: sour cream, cheese, butter, cottage cheese, kefir. This requirement is followed so carefully that different utensils are used to prepare such dishes, which are kept in separate cabinets. Jews with sufficient financial resources set up two kitchens: dairy and meat.

The following birds are considered kosher: geese, chickens, ducks, turkeys, quails, pigeons and pheasants. Unsuitable for food are many birds of prey and wild birds, including the eagle, pelican, owl, crow, stork, and seagull. The eggs of these birds are also unclean. All birds must be healthy and properly slaughtered.

According to the commandments of kashrut, a product from a non-kosher animal (milk, eggs) is also non-kosher. For example, you cannot eat turtle eggs - the turtle is a type of reptile that is unfit for consumption. Camel milk is also considered club milk. The exception is honey, a waste product of bees.

Kosher fish

A fish that has scales and fins is considered suitable for Jews. Clubs include dolphins, catfish, catfish, and eels. Crustaceans (crabs, crayfish, lobsters, shrimp) and molluscs (mussels, snails, oysters) are considered clubbed (unclean) - not consistent with the principles of kashrut. The anti-blood law does not apply to fish. Sturgeon caviar is one of the unclean waste products of fish. Fish is a parevous (neutral) product; it can be combined with dairy products. Cooking meat and fish dishes is not recommended from a medical point of view.

The Torah prohibits eating snakes, frogs and worms, as well as all insects (with the exception of four types of locusts).

Other Kosher Products

Bread and wine that were not made by a Jew are not considered kosher. During Easter, it is forbidden to eat bread that has been prepared with yeast. Instead, Jews eat thin flatbreads made with flour and water, called matzah.

Dishes

Tableware can become non-kosher if hot clubs are placed on it. In a family where food consumption laws are strictly adhered to, this cannot happen, but violations of this rule are possible when visiting or visiting a restaurant.

Food prepared from milk and meat is prohibited from being served together.

The ban on eating pork is not the only culinary restriction in Jewish society. Believing Jews, that is, those who religiously observe the laws of the Torah, eat only kosher foods. And there are very good reasons for this.

What is kosher food

Kosher has nothing to do with the calorie content of foods or, say, their taste. For example, no one will doubt that sturgeon, shrimp, and catfish meat are delicious. Nevertheless, all of the listed products are non-kosher, because according to the laws of kashrut (a special system of prohibitions and restrictions), only fish with scales and fins can be eaten. Sturgeon and catfish do not have scales, shrimp are not fish at all. By the way, all shellfish and crustaceans are non-kosher.

The full list of kosher products will be given below, but for now let’s talk about the goals and objectives of such restrictions.

Kashrut: who needs it and why?

Actually, the principles of kashrut concern not only nutrition, but also some other aspects of Jewish life: everyday, legal, social. There is no logical explanation for these principles. They are performed exclusively as a sign of submission to the will of the Creator, and ultimately, in order to achieve unity with the world, the so-called “abode in the lower worlds.”

There is also a medical basis for the laws of kashrut. It is believed that non-kosher (or, as they sometimes say, treif) food negatively affects a person’s spiritual level; in addition, aggression and other base reactions are transmitted with it (in particular, with the meat of aggressive animals).

To some extent, the principles of kashrut overlap with famous saying Hippocrates on healthy eating: “You are what you eat.”

Dividing food according to kashrut principles

All inanimate matter around us is divided into kosher (allowed), non-kosher (forbidden) and psul (inedible).

Example of kosher food: chicken, goose, duck. Example of non-kosher food: pork (see also – ), rabbit, horse meat. As for the inedible, everything is clear with it.

Kosher food, in turn, is divided into basar (meat), halav (dairy) and parve (vegetables, fruits, fish, nuts, honey). It turns out that any plant food in its original form is kosher, but as for dishes, it’s not so simple. To prepare kosher food, you need to use special (kosher) utensils - ones that have not come into contact with products from the prohibited list. In order to return the dishes to kosher, if they are suddenly lost, they can be boiled or calcined over a fire.

Meat products, the consumption of which is allowed by kashrut:

• meat of domestic ruminants with cloven hooves (cows, goats, sheep);
• meat of wild animals with the same characteristics (elk, deer, roe deer);
• meat of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and quails. It is also allowed to use the eggs of these birds.

It is worth making one more important clarification. The meat of a kosher animal must be properly processed and slaughtered in accordance with a special ritual (shechita). The Torah strictly prohibits eating blood, so immediately after killing an animal, its meat is soaked in water at room temperature, then sprinkled with salt - so that the salt absorbs as much blood as possible - and washed. The kosher processing of meat is monitored by a magshiach (a specialist whose responsibilities include supervising the kosher of food and utensils).

Prohibited meat products

• pork, horse meat, rabbit meat, camel meat and wild animals that do not have both signs of kosher;
• poultry meat not included in the list of permitted birds (non-kosher, for example, ostrich, pheasant, guinea fowl meat);
• meat of amphibians and reptiles.

It is also strictly forbidden to eat insects and their metabolic products (except for honey - it is considered a kosher product).

When it comes to dairy products, those that come from kosher animals are considered kosher.

In addition, the basic principles of kashrut include the ban on mixing meat and dairy foods, consisting of three points:

• You cannot cook meat and dairy products together;
• at least 6 hours must pass between eating meat and dairy foods;
• These products and products made from them should also be stored separately.

Let's summarize. The system of restrictions known as kashrut only at first glance seems like a set of meaningless prohibitions. In fact, behind it are the centuries-old traditions of the Jewish people and the infinite wisdom of the Creator. And many principles of kosher nutrition should be adopted by adherents of a healthy lifestyle.

Be careful what you eat!

Two thousand years ago, after the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, two main communities were formed: Sephardic, consisting of immigrants from Spain, Yemen and Morocco, and Ashkenazi, immigrants from France, Germany, Poland, Russia and other European countries. And if Sephardic Jewish cuisine has absorbed the spicy flavor of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, then Ashkenazi cuisine, on the contrary, is distinguished by restraint and simplicity. Jews in Europe lived, as a rule, poorly, and they had to constantly invent how to adequately and satisfactorily feed a large family. It is not surprising that it is Ashkenazi housewives who are famous for their ability to cook the famous traditional Jewish cuisine three course lunch. This broth, stuffed chicken neck and cutlets.

Traditional Jewish vegetable cutlets

Jews came to countries that were foreign to them, tried to adapt to new products and cooking methods, but they brought and preserved traditions Jewish national cuisine. Each community - in North Africa and Spain, in distant Ashkenaz (Germany), Poland or India - had its own butcher, or shohat, who slaughtered livestock and processed the meat according to the same rules. Always and everywhere in Jewish communities, dairy and meat were separated. To distinguish their bread in a public bakery, Jewish housewives began to braid it in braids - so traditional Jewish recipes challahs appeared.

Jewish cuisine: Shabbat

A special feature of Jewish cuisine is the constant need to prepare for Saturday- a weekly holiday in a Jewish family. On Saturday there are three festive tables: on Friday evening, Saturday morning or afternoon and the last one at the end of the day. The first meals begin, as on other holidays, with the consecration of the day - kiddush, pronouncing blessings on wine. After kiddush comes washing of hands, blessing of bread, which is dipped in salt (on autumn holidays - in honey), and the first course of Jewish cuisine begins.

The law that protects the Sabbath rest does not recommend that a devout Jew engage in work, and one of the concepts of “work” is sorting through something, taking it apart piece by piece. Wise Jewish women found a way out here too, they invented stuffed fish, meatballs, chopped cutlets... You simply don’t need to remove the bones from them, similar dishes in Jewish cuisine enough.

You cannot heat food on an open fire on Saturdays, but on the other hand, the food served on the table should be tasty and nutritious. Each community has its own unique Jewish dishes, which you can get your fill of both cold and warm, as well as those that can be put in the oven all night and taken out hot in the morning - hamin (cholent), kugeli And casseroles.

Khamin (cholent), a Jewish dish

Jewish recipes

Many dishes that have become firmly established in our lives today are in no way associated with Jewish cuisine. For example cheesecake was invented by Jewish housewives in Ukraine. It was only during the first wave of immigration to America that his recipe came to New York. And the famous appetizer from the times of the USSR “Fish under marinade”, upon closer examination, turns out to be nothing more than hraime- a popular Jewish dish from North Africa.

But there are also examples when food from another cuisine was borrowed and prepared in its own way by Jewish housewives, and now we associate it with Jewish cuisine. This is, for example, the story mincemeat- cold appetizer of chopped herring with apples. It was originally a German dish of veal and herring, like an oven-baked pate.

Forshmak

Kosher Jewish food

Kashrut is a set of laws regarding food and its preparation. They determined in great detail whether and how exactly it can be cooked and eaten. different kinds meat, poultry and fish. It is on the basis of these commandments that there is a law according to which Jews do not eat pork, horse meat, hare, rabbit meat, seafood, birds of prey and reptiles.

• In traditional Jewish cuisine There is a rule to separate dishes for preparing meat and dairy foods. All pots, molds, bowls, knives, boards - which are used to prepare dairy foods - cannot be used for cooking meat and vice versa.
• To make meat kosher and could be used in national Jewish cuisine, cattle and poultry must be slaughtered in compliance with certain rituals and rules. The laws of kosher slaughter are taught in a yeshiva (religious educational institution).
• After slaughter, meat must be carefully separated from the veins., in particular from the “sciatic nerve”, which is specifically mentioned in the Torah. The profession of one who removes the veins and sciatic nerve from cattle is called “menaker”. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Like “reznik” or “shochet”, these are popular Jewish surnames that indicate the occupation of the ancestors of their bearers.

• Jews believe that the soul is in the blood of an animal, and therefore blood is prohibited in kosher Jewish cuisine. In order to make the blood-forming organs suitable for food (kosher), they need to be prepared in a certain way.
• For a fish to be kosher, it must have fins and scales. If one or the other is missing, like sturgeon or catfish, it is not kosher, and therefore its caviar is also not kosher. Sterlet, stingray, shark, eel and seafood (lobster, oysters, crayfish, lobster, shrimp, octopus) are also non-kosher.
• Dairy products and milk in traditional Jewish cuisine must come from a kosher animal, without impurities. In order to obtain a kosher milk certificate, the milking process must be supervised by an observant Jew.
• Cheeses fermented with rennet are not kosher. But now there are enough cheeses that are produced with artificially grown enzymes and are used without problems in kosher Jewish cuisine; they usually have a kosher certificate issued by the rabbinate.
• Gelatin is also an animal product and therefore not kosher. Agar is used instead in Jewish recipes.
• Wines and alcoholic drinks, those made not from grapes (vodka, liqueurs, tequila, rum) do not require a kashrut permit.

The Torah does not provide any signs by which one could distinguish between permitted and forbidden birds. Twenty-four non-kosher species are named instead.

In chapter 11 of the book of Vayikra and in chapter 14 of the book of Devarim, the Torah characterizes representatives of the fauna that are prohibited and permitted for Jews to eat.

§ Only those mammals that have cloven hooves and chew cud are allowed. Those that do not have both characteristics or have only one of them are prohibited (camel, pig, hare, badger). “Clean” animals: large and small cattle, deer, roe deer, etc.

§ Only fish species that have fins and scales are allowed. That is, we cannot eat many “seafood” that other nations consider edible: lobsters, oysters, shrimp, sea cucumbers, crabs, cuttlefish, etc. You should not eat caviar from non-kosher fish.

§ The Torah does not provide any signs by which one could distinguish between permitted and forbidden birds. Twenty-four non-kosher species are named instead. Based on this list, the sages of the Talmud formulated the signs of birds prohibited for consumption. These are mainly predators or those who eat carrion: vultures, crows, hawks, owls, ostriches, pelicans, storks, herons, etc. Traditionally, permitted birds include chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, and pigeons.

§ Amphibians, rodents and insects are prohibited, as are all creatures that “crawl on their bellies”, i.e. reptiles.

§ All creatures allowed to be eaten are called in the Torah Tagore - clean. All non-kosher living beings are called tame - unclean, and also shekets - vile or toeiwa - disgusting. However, they are usually characterized by the term club, like any meat (even a kosher animal), unsuitable for food in accordance with Jewish law.

§ Eggs, milk, caviar of all non-kosher animals, birds and fish are also prohibited. The only exception is bee honey, which is specifically permitted in the Torah.

§ The Jewish code of laws also includes some sanitary instructions. Foods that are harmful to health should not be eaten, even if they are allowed by the rules. kashrut. The basis for this is the requirement of the Torah: “Guard your lives...” (Devarim 4:15).

§ The Torah prohibits the consumption of meat from animals and birds that died a natural death or were not slaughtered in a special way called shechita". “Do not eat any carrion...” (Devarim 14:21); “...slaughter [the animals] from your herds and flocks...as I commanded you...” (Devarim 12:21).

§ Rules shechita The Oral Torah has preserved for us, and they concern only livestock and poultry, but not fish: “... flocks and herds stabbed to death for them... fish of the sea collected for them..." (Bamidbar, 11:22).

§ Rules shechita designed to ensure minimal suffering to the animal and to remove as much more blood. Using a very sharp knife without the slightest notch, the trachea, esophagus, carotid artery and jugular vein are immediately cut. The animal loses consciousness almost instantly, and the cut itself is painless (a person who cuts his finger with a sharp razor feels pain only a second or two later). The best psychologists, pathologists and other scientists claim that the Jewish method of slaughtering animals is the most humane. Besides humanity, shechita has another significant advantage over any other slaughter methods: it guarantees complete and rapid flow of blood, which is an indispensable requirement kashrut. There is no doubt that this requirement corresponds to modern views on food hygiene.

§ Shohet - not just a Jewish slaughterer. Shohet must be deep religious person knowledgeable about the laws shechita. He must have an excellent understanding of the anatomy and physiology of animals, pass a difficult exam and have the appropriate document from the rabbinate. Confident in knowledge and piety shokheta, Jews often invite him to perform other duties, especially in small communities. Procedure shechita developed in detail in the Talmud (tractate Hulin, 1,2) and codified in the Shulchan Aruch (section “Yoreh Deah”, 1:28).

"KACHERING" MEAT

Banning Blood

§ The Torah forbids eating the blood of even kosher cattle and birds (but not fish): “You shall not eat any blood... neither of birds nor of cattle... But whoever eats blood, his soul will be cut off from his people” (Vayikra, 7 :2b,27).

§ In order not to violate this commandment, the blood must be removed in one of two ways: either by soaking and salting, or by frying over a fire or in an electric oven.

§ If an animal or bird has been properly slaughtered, but its meat is not prepared according to Jewish law, it becomes non-kosher. So, if during cooking or frying without prior kashering, the blood remaining after slaughter flows out of the meat, the entire contents of the frying pan or pan becomes non-kosher.

Laching by roasting

§ You cannot fry meat in a frying pan; blood should flow freely.

§ The grill, spit, grate on which the meat was kashered must be calcined for further use.

§ Raw meat must be thoroughly washed and salted before frying.

§ After the meat is fried, it must be washed three times to remove blood. After this, you can cook in any way.

§ The method of kashering by frying is used mainly for preparing liver, which contains a lot of blood. Ordinary meat is kashered by soaking and salting.

Kashing by soaking and salting

§ First of all, the meat is thoroughly washed in cold running water, then placed in a bowl with cold water. The water should completely cover the meat, and it will soften.

§ Frozen meat should not be salted until it has completely thawed.

§ After the meat has been in the water for half an hour, it is thickly salted on all sides (the bird inside and outside the carcass) with medium-grain salt. Regular table salt is too fine and quickly absorbs into the meat instead of drawing out the blood.

§ The salted meat is placed on an inclined board so that the blood can drain freely. There is no need to tilt a board that has holes in it.

§ The meat should lie on the board for an hour (under special circumstances this period can be reduced to eighteen minutes).

§ After an hour, the salt should be thoroughly washed off with cold running water. Now the meat can be boiled, fried or baked.

§ The bowl in which the meat is soaked and the board cannot be used for other purposes.

§ Meat is kashered immediately after purchase. In any case, treatment should not be delayed more than seventy-two hours from the moment shechita. If kashering must nevertheless be postponed to a later date, the meat must be thoroughly washed in cold water before the seventy-two hours have elapsed to prevent the blood from clotting, otherwise salting and soaking may become ineffective.

§ If the meat has been sitting for more than seventy-two hours without washing or kashering, the blood can only be removed by frying. If it was frozen, then, according to some authorities, it can be kashered with pickles.

§ An egg found inside a chicken also needs to be soaked and salted. But it is placed separately from the carcass at the upper end of the inclined board. It is considered meat and should not be eaten together with dairy products.

§ Meat intended for minced meat must be kashered before grinding. If the meat is ground before kashering, it should not be eaten. The container in which this meat was stored becomes non-kosher.

§ Do not use the egg if it contains blood spots or clots. Before use, you need to carefully examine both the yolk and the white.

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