Jewish people, how do you keep eating multicultural foods?
I keep kosher, but I wasn’t raised that way. We never had pork or that sort of thing in the house, and we used to go out to all sorts of restaurants. That being said, now that I keep kosher, my restaurant choices are much more limited, but I can cook, my wife can cook, and there are still many kosher restaurants in the area. I lovvee Indian, Thai, and Japanese food. Today, it’s no problem finding sushi in just about every kosher restaurant around… it seems to be a trend. There is finally an Indian restaurant which is pretty good no too far away, and I’m still working on finding good kosher Thai food. A lot depends on the area you are living in… in Jerusalem or Brooklyn, there’s all sorts of great kosher restaurants and lots of kosher-only supermarkets. In the United States, it’s fairly easy to keep kosher… even in far out places, there are lots of kosher products in any supermarket, but in more Jewish areas, kosher cheese and meat and so forth are also available in the supermarke
I am a Reform Jew who in terms of belief in the supernatural, is actually more of a secular-humanist. I don’t keep Kosher because I don’t believe there is anyone out there who cares. There is – to my mind – simply no evidence of such a being. I don’t brag about this as I know that most of my fellow Jews here do indeed keep Kosher and I respect that. However, I do feel the need to be honest. So yes, I will generally eat anything if it looks appetizing or interesting. In addition, my fiance and I (she is a bit more religious than I am) currently live in a very Jewish part of Los Angeles. As such, we keep a Kosher home because many of her friends are Conservative and Orthodox. So while most Kosher homes will have 3 sets of dishes – a milk set, a meat set and a Passover set – we have a milk set, a meat set and a non-kosher set. (Passover is a pain in the as* to prepare for so we’d just as soon go to friends and families Seders). I myself was raised among secular friends in very non-Jewish
A lot of multi cultural food can be kosher or can be adapted to be kosher by changing some of the ingredients. Any meat from a pig is forbidden in Judaism as are shellfish and kosher fish must have scales. I am orthodox and I wouldn’t ignore the rules;if however a person is in a terrible situation and non kosher food is the only thing between them and starvation then they would eat it to preserve life. If I were to go out with a non Jewish friend then we would have to go to a kosher restaurant or just on a shopping trip. I love potato latkes but I’m not so sure about Chicken dahl soup; I love things like lasagne,fried fish,shepherds pie and chicken schnitzels. I live in a large orthodox Jewish community and our needs are pretty well catered for.
It is not hard to keep kosher. We enjoy a great number of multicultural foods because We are multicultural. We do not eat Pork, shellfish or skin fish such as catfish or shark. There are a number of kosher restaurants, although I usually cook and entertain at home. Our family keeps kosher. Yes, potato latke, cholent, matza ball soup are al very delicious ! If you know the ingredients and how it was prepared (if the kitchen is kosher or not ) we have no problem trying new foods. From the way you state the question I would have to say you don’t know what a potato latke is – it is a Jewish hash brown potato. You have something against hash browns ?
