Food - Bee Wilson on what is - and isn't - kosher
"Nesquik Strawberry Milk Now Not Kosher!" At the website for the London Ben Din kashrut you can access updates on the kosher status of common branded foods. According to a posting in September, Supercook sugar strands are now not kosher, but Allinson Easybake yeast is. Honey Nut Cheerios are pareve or neutral, "not dairy as stated". To an outsider, these applications of ancient law to modern packaged goods can seem bizarrely detailed - but no more so, on reflection, than the Torah passages which informed them.
"You shall not eat any abominable thing," says Deuteronomy 14. "These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hart, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep." This is not a shopping list you can do much with at Sainsbury's. The stipulations in Leviticus 11 are also marvellously in-applicable to the modern diet, especially those on insects. Winged insects are basically forbidden, "Yet . . . you may eat those which have legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth. Of them you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the bald locust according to its kind, the cricket according to its kind, and the grasshopper according to its kind." No wonder Jews have often chosen to be vegetarian.
It's easy for a Gentile to be bemused by the kashrut; but Jewish cuisines throughout history have displayed a resilient capacity for interpreting ancient laws - no cloven hoofed animal, no seething of a kid in its mother's milk - in sensible and appetising recipes. One gets a sense of this reading Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food (now out in paperback, Penguin, £12.99). Roden observes that the Sephardim (broadly, Jews of the Iberian peninsula) have been more tolerant in their reading of the kashrut than the Ashkenazi (northern, American and east European Jews).
Up to a point, the kashrut has been a unifying force, forging common families of dishes - from Baghdadi chicken soup with rice to New York chicken soup with lokshen. But it has also been plundered in diverse ways. Goose is a favourite kosher meat for Alsatian Jews, but Yemenite Jews shun it because it's both "land and water", an ambiguous creature. Even fish, a pareve or neutral food, can be controversial. Only fish with fins and scales are allowed; so when minute scales showed up on the non-kosher sturgeon's tail under the microscope, its status was thrown into sudden doubt.
The original reasoning behind the dietary laws is not known. Were they designed to set the community apart? Or to master man's sensual urges? If so, neither end has been entirely effective. Not only have Jewish cooks drawn on and influenced native eating habits in diverse countries - think of the ubiquity of cheesecakes and bagels - but their diets have also been filled with sensual delights, as in this creamily autumnal recipe. Kashrut, schmashrut.
Pumpkin flan Claudia Roden says this is a "speciality of the Veneto". Its mellow taste and pale orange crust is reminiscent of Venetian pumpkin risotti cooked outside the ghetto, another indication that Jewish food is not a cuisine apart. Steam 500g of pumpkin flesh (I used butternut squash) in 125ml water until soft; then remove the lid and cook until the water evaporates. Make a stiff bechamel from 50g butter, three tbsp flour and 250ml warmed milk. Blend the pumpkin with the sauce until smooth, season and beat in three eggs. Pour into a buttered and floured mould or dish (Roden suggests a ring mould) and bake at 180oC (gas 4) for about 45 minutes. "Turn out and serve hot." It cuts like a squidgy cake. It's a good vegetarian main dish (for three to four with bread and salad); but as a Gentile, I think it would be delicious with crispy pork and sage.
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