followed to the letter, or you can—you know—pick and choose bits that are convenient.
This was, and indeed still is, my family’s approach, but no longer mine, I should point out. I’ve happily shed my faith, and quite frankly, bacon’s nice. It’s delicious, and I’m not going to deny myself the tastiest meat in the world, at home or away, on the orders of a God I don’t believe in. It’s like driving below the speed limit on an empty road when you know there are no cameras.
It’s odd how hard this is to explain to friends, even ones who know me quite well. It’s remarkable the number of times I’ve beenout to eat and someone’s told me that I can’t have the bacon. Why? “Because you’re a Jew. Jews can’t eat bacon.”
It’s as if we physically can’t eat it: pork disagrees with us. Moses came down from the mountain with basic dietary advice: “Children of Israel, it’s about the bacon. You can . . . but I wouldn’t.”
My family home is kosher. No pork, no bacon would ever be cooked in our kitchen. We would leave the house and eat it, but never in the house. The house is kosher. As long as the house is going to heaven, that’s all that counts. It’s important that my parents can stand on their doorstep, gesture backward, and say, “This is a Jewish house. This house has never broken a Jewish law. No non-kosher food has touched this house.”
That’s not to say no kosher food has been in the house. It’s just never touched it. This is where it gets a tad stranger. We would happily order in Chinese food or pizzas—say, pork chow mein or a Hawaiian pizza—but we would eat it off paper plates and protect the table with newspaper. To trick God.
That’s not even the only rule as to what makes something kosher. There are loads of rules, and anyone wanting a properly Jewish Christmas would do well to learn them all, or find a sufficiently hospitable aunt. Mine is available for a small fee. Keen scholars of Judaism (or readers of the beginning of this piece) will know that, as well as the whole pig issue, dairy products and meat products must be kept separate. So, for example, if you’re eating a meat-based bolognaise sauce on pasta, you couldn’t put cheese on it to make it, well, nice. Cheeseburgers are out too, because they arenice. Essentially the Jewish God hates the delicious.
This separation of foodstuffs stretches to cutlery and crockery too. I remember, as a child, non-Jewish friends getting that wrong: using a “meat fork” for a dairy dish. This fork is now bad; it’s contaminated. I’m sure there’s a proper name for it, and I could probably look it up, but to save time, let’s go with Jew-icky.
If you want to save that fork (and who wouldn’t?) your only choice is to bury that fork in the ground for three days, which somehow magics it better. Three days later it’s as good as when it was first plucked from the earth all those years ago. As a child I genuinely witnessed my mother, on hands and knees in our back garden, burying a fork like it was the family hamster, which left me thinking, What the hell are you doing? Surely you either believe in God or you don’t. And if you don’t believe in a Jewish God, why are you digging for cutlery, and if you do believe in a Jewish God, what were you doing with that BLT five minutes ago?
So there’s your guide to all things kosher. Well, not all things kosher. Not even close. You also can’t eat shellfish, dogs, or birds of prey. Anyone longing for a traditional Christmas kestrel would be wise to steer clear of a Jewish household, where the kestrel, rather than being killed and eaten, is kept alive at the head of the table. (I’d like to think this is obviously a joke, but a small part of me really hopes it is taken at face value. Please do your best to spread this as a genuine fact. There’s little that would bring me more joy—and Christmas is, after all, a time for joy—than for it to be told back to me in earnest, by
This was, and indeed still is, my family’s approach, but no longer mine, I should point out. I’ve happily shed my faith, and quite frankly, bacon’s nice. It’s delicious, and I’m not going to deny myself the tastiest meat in the world, at home or away, on the orders of a God I don’t believe in. It’s like driving below the speed limit on an empty road when you know there are no cameras.
It’s odd how hard this is to explain to friends, even ones who know me quite well. It’s remarkable the number of times I’ve beenout to eat and someone’s told me that I can’t have the bacon. Why? “Because you’re a Jew. Jews can’t eat bacon.”
It’s as if we physically can’t eat it: pork disagrees with us. Moses came down from the mountain with basic dietary advice: “Children of Israel, it’s about the bacon. You can . . . but I wouldn’t.”
My family home is kosher. No pork, no bacon would ever be cooked in our kitchen. We would leave the house and eat it, but never in the house. The house is kosher. As long as the house is going to heaven, that’s all that counts. It’s important that my parents can stand on their doorstep, gesture backward, and say, “This is a Jewish house. This house has never broken a Jewish law. No non-kosher food has touched this house.”
That’s not to say no kosher food has been in the house. It’s just never touched it. This is where it gets a tad stranger. We would happily order in Chinese food or pizzas—say, pork chow mein or a Hawaiian pizza—but we would eat it off paper plates and protect the table with newspaper. To trick God.
That’s not even the only rule as to what makes something kosher. There are loads of rules, and anyone wanting a properly Jewish Christmas would do well to learn them all, or find a sufficiently hospitable aunt. Mine is available for a small fee. Keen scholars of Judaism (or readers of the beginning of this piece) will know that, as well as the whole pig issue, dairy products and meat products must be kept separate. So, for example, if you’re eating a meat-based bolognaise sauce on pasta, you couldn’t put cheese on it to make it, well, nice. Cheeseburgers are out too, because they arenice. Essentially the Jewish God hates the delicious.
This separation of foodstuffs stretches to cutlery and crockery too. I remember, as a child, non-Jewish friends getting that wrong: using a “meat fork” for a dairy dish. This fork is now bad; it’s contaminated. I’m sure there’s a proper name for it, and I could probably look it up, but to save time, let’s go with Jew-icky.
If you want to save that fork (and who wouldn’t?) your only choice is to bury that fork in the ground for three days, which somehow magics it better. Three days later it’s as good as when it was first plucked from the earth all those years ago. As a child I genuinely witnessed my mother, on hands and knees in our back garden, burying a fork like it was the family hamster, which left me thinking, What the hell are you doing? Surely you either believe in God or you don’t. And if you don’t believe in a Jewish God, why are you digging for cutlery, and if you do believe in a Jewish God, what were you doing with that BLT five minutes ago?
So there’s your guide to all things kosher. Well, not all things kosher. Not even close. You also can’t eat shellfish, dogs, or birds of prey. Anyone longing for a traditional Christmas kestrel would be wise to steer clear of a Jewish household, where the kestrel, rather than being killed and eaten, is kept alive at the head of the table. (I’d like to think this is obviously a joke, but a small part of me really hopes it is taken at face value. Please do your best to spread this as a genuine fact. There’s little that would bring me more joy—and Christmas is, after all, a time for joy—than for it to be told back to me in earnest, by
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