Posted on 05/11/2004 6:46:11 PM PDT by SJackson
Udderly kosher: (or if you prefer) Locusts and sparrows and udders, oh my. Diners feast on 'exotics,' thanks to O.U. By Uriel Heilman
NEW YORK-At $161 a head, most people paying for dinner at an upscale Manhattan restaurant would be upset to be served dessert while eyeing a locust crawling around not far from their plates.
But that's exactly what diners sought when they signed up for the Orthodox Union's exotic kosher event May 2 at Levana restaurant in New York.
Diners paid for a multicourse meal including cow udder, wild turkey, quail, bison, venison, goat, sheep stew, pigeon, dove and sparrow. In between courses, O.U. kosher officials explained what makes the animals kosher, why they are rarely eaten and how to identify and prepare them.
"The whole point of this event is to keep the mesorah alive," said Menachem Genack, head of the kosher division at the O.U., as waiters collected plates of cow udder from diners. "Mesorah" is Hebrew for "tradition."
The aim of the dinner-and a daylong conference that preceded it-was "to eat animals to re-establish the fact that they are kosher," he said, so that the tradition of what animals are kosher can be passed on to a new generation.
While some animals can be identified as kosher using empirical characteristics-beasts that chew their cud and have split hooves are considered kosher-others, such as bird species, are kosher only because they traditionally have been known to be so and have been eaten by observant Jews.
Diners ate quail and dove and sparrow to ensure that the memory that these birds are kosher is not forgotten, Genack said.
If reaction to the food was any indication, that memory is safe.
"I'd never eaten quail before," said Frada Nager, from Manhattan's Upper East Side, a kosher observer who said she came because she wanted to taste something unusual.
"Being kosher, you don't have that much choice," she said.
Though Nager was not so impressed with the taste of the exotic meats she was served-when asked what she liked best, she noted that the seven-grain bread rolls had been good-she said she nevertheless was glad she came.
"It was an experience-a costly one, but an experience," she said.
Some members of Jewish vegetarian organizations, however, said they were appalled by the event.
Dr. Richard Schwartz, the author of "Judaism and Vegetarianism" and a longtime Jewish vegetarian activist, said, "While the Orthodox Union deserves much credit for many of their positive activities, their insensitive feast of exotic animals sends a very bad message at a time when animal- based diets are causing an epidemic of disease in the Jewish community, and animal-based agriculture is having devastating effects on the environment of the planet. I urge the O.U. to help make Jews aware of how the production and consumption of animal products violates basic Jewish mandates to protect our health, treat animals compassionately, preserve the environment, conserve natural resources, and help hungry people. This would be a great kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d's name."
Earlier in the day, the Orthodox Union held a daylong conference at the Lander College for Men on kosher species, how to recognize them and how to make them kosher.
About 450 people turned out for the conference, O.U. officials said. Some were rabbis, some were professional kosher slaughterers, but most merely were curious, kosher-observant Jews, the union said.
At one point during the conference, a Yemenite Jew prepared a kosher locust- Sephardi Jews, unlike Ashkenazim, ate such kosher insects until recently-but there weren't many takers when it came time to eat the fried grasshopper.
Stuart Shaffren, a New York dentist, said he canceled a day's worth of patients to go to the conference.
Even if he had skipped the dinner, he said, "the lectures alone were far worth it."
Shaffren, who received the dinner as a birthday gift from his family, said he also was excited to be keeping the tradition alive.
There wasn't a vegetarian in the house on Sunday night. Yet while the tables were full until late into the evening, some plates went back into the kitchen nearly untouched.
"I couldn't eat anything," said one woman, who left shortly before waiters began passing out plates of cubed goat and sheep stew. "I want to get out of here before they serve goat. Goat I can't take."
Another diner, Pinchus Merling, a Chasid who lives in Manhattan, said he came for shibuta, a fish that purportedly tastes like pork. But shibuta was unavailable.
"That's what I really wanted. To tell my friends I ate pork. To say I know what pork tastes like," he said.
Nevertheless, Merling said the soup, whose ingredients included pigeon, dove, sparrow, duck and a "fleishig egg"-an unhatched egg found in a slaughtered chicken that is considered meat, rather than pareve, according to Jewish law-brought him back to his childhood.
"I haven't tasted a fleishig egg since I was a child," Merling said wistfully. "My mother used to open chickens and find fleishig eggs in there."
The egg consists solely of a yolk that is smaller and harder than typical yolks.
Avraham Kirschenbaum, who owns Levana along with two of his brothers, said the biggest challenge was not the food preparation-his non-Jewish chef is well-versed in preparing unconventional meats-but finding the animals to kill according to Jewish law.
"There are people that put things into theory, but theory is not reality," he said. "The hardest part of the project is that someone's got to bring it into reality."
The restaurant's standard menu includes bison and venison, but things got a little trickier when Kirschenbaum wanted to serve goat.
He went to a meat market in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and found the perfect goat. But when Kirschenbaum picked it out, it was given to a non-Jew and slaughtered before Kirschenbaum-and the ritual slaughterer he had brought with him-could intervene.
"They killed my goat!" he said. "I'm like, 'What are you doing, man? You killed my goat!' "
An alternative goat was selected and slaughtered, along with two sheep, one of which Kirschenbaum described as "drop-dead gorgeous."
The shochet-the ritual slaughterer-was a little nervous, Kirschenbaum said.
"All along the way, everybody was shaking," he said.
But "the kill was perfect" he said, and the result made it onto the plate of Rabbi Tzvi Flaum, among others.
"To see firsthand the reality of the kosher bird species we learned about in the Talmud," said Flaum, rabbi at Congregation Knesseth Israel of Far Rockaway, N.Y., "you're finally finding out about what you learned about in childhood."
"It was a unique life experience," he said.
Pauline Dubkin Yearwood contributed to this story.
Of course people eat quail. Venison, bison, sheep, those aren't yuuuuuck.
Why would people choose to eat this way?
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
The older members of my family (non-Jewish) eat a soup made with duck's blood.
Speaking of buffalo, there is a bison ranch in Postville, Iowa, and they supply animals to Agriprocessors, the kosher slaughtering house. I have never had buffalo meat, though. I guess I am "chicken."
I'm sorry that the "Jewish" PETA-freaks have to be such party poopers.
Those, uh, gourmet delicacies could be prepared according to kosher specifications.
Calves foot jelly! Now there's a kosher "delicacy" I could live without.
Alouette will know better about the oysters, I've read they're not but I don't know why. Fried rattlesnake is out though.
My father ate a dish he called pitzah which consisted of fried brains and garlic. I've later heard pitzah is garlic and cows feet, so it's likely anything you can tell the butcher is for the cat, fried with garlic.
Duck's blood soup, yuk, though I have relatives that eat whitefish soaked in lye (lutefisk-a winter thread) so to each their own.
The African markets in New York go even further and sell the entire "member" of the bull. EWWWWW!
I love pitzah, just most folks spell it pizza.
You are probably talking about pitchah which is the gagging sound you make when it's placed on the table.
Gagging sound, that's it! I just couldn't spell (or eat) it.
Several place on the web that sell kosher bison, but once it take the big step from bufflo to bison, it becomes costly.
Okay you pointy headed kashruth-mavens: How can a wild turkey be Kosher? I have been lead to believe that only farm raised meat (fleishig: beef, lamb, chicken etc., not fish) may be Kosher. If a turkey were wild, it would automatically not qualify.
This pertains because while we keep a kosher home, I also keep a non-kosher camp kitchen in the garage to take on hunting trips. I only kill what I'll eat before I come home. Last fall, I got my first wild turkey (12 pound hen, @ 34 yards, 3.5" 5 shot), and had to cook it outside.
So 'splain to me how I can make that bird kosher, and serve it to my conservadox wife?
I've actually had the "pleasure" of eating kosher turkey "oysters" in the Jerusalem shuk. Taste rubbery. Not something I would repeat.
No problem with fried calves brains. I've eaten them too.
On the other hand, the ducks' blood would be a problem-- blood in general ain't kasher.
I've also eaten bison (yum yum), venison (unremarkable and leathery-- tastes a little like liver), quail (absolutely wonderful, I hope I get to dine on it again some day). Never had goat, but I'm looking forward to it the next time I go to Israel.
Besides, you can buy turkey at the market, there are more construcive things to do with your time (the answer I've gotten to that question). If that applies to hundters, I don't know why it doesn't apply to golfers, go figure.
First and foremost, the animal must be schected (slaughtered) properly. So to eat your "kill" on a hunting trip, you'd probably have to catch the animal alive and relatively unharmed (as serious injuries to the animal can render it unkasher) -- then you'd have to slaughter it with a knife yourself, in the proper fashion (you'd need to take about a 2 month course to learn how to slaughter it properly).
Once killed, you'd have to inspect the animal's lungs to ensure that it doesn't have any punctures that would render it unkasher (you'd also need training to be able to properly identify those punctures).
Next, you'd have to drain the animal of blood, salting it to make sure all the blood is gone.
Do all of that, and you'd have yourself a kasher wild turkey. Any takers?
Once when we were at the zoo in front of the giraffe area, I was telling my sons that we could actually EAT giraffe; it is a kosher animal. Suddenly I saw some people overhearing us turn away in disgust! LOL, as though we would climb into the zoo and do away with a giraffe!!
No disrespect to your ex-uncle, but there's a good chance that his handling and/or butchering was the problem, not the chef. Also, consider the possibility that he served last years deer. Lots of "aged" venison in peoples freezers.
Giraffe steak Wildlife conservation
A few years ago conservationists would have been horrified at the idea of finding a giraffe steak served at a restaurant. But today some seriously consider that eating wildlife is the best way to save it. Wildlife ranching is increasing in Africa because it is proving a better way of maintaining animal stocks than keeping them in game parks.
Dr David Hopcraft is spearheading Kenya’s wildlife ranching movement on the Arthi River ranch, 40 kilometres outside Nairobi. His exotic menagerie includes giraffe, Thomson’s gazelle, ostrich and zebra. His stock has increased by 40 per cent since 1981 - from 1,400 to 2,000 - despite culling 15 animals a week to sell to local tourist restaurants like ‘The Carnivore’.
There was no market for African venison before Hoperaft’s project began. But today eight of Nairobi’s best hotels and restaurants are buying the meat - and the list is expanding. This year the ranch plans to market its products throughout the European Community. Hoperaft is also helping to set up a similar venture in Mexico with indigenous animals like elk, mule and deer.
Exploiting animals for profit is the most feasible route to wildlife conservation, argues ranch manager, Phil Tilby. ‘There are too many farmers who complain that their crops are being destroyed by game and that they’re losing their land to national parks. If you convince those farmers that their game can become a source of income, they’ll start looking after it.’ At present national parks look like a luxury to farmers hungry for fertile land and food.
Wildlife ranching is also more efficient than cattle ranching, argues Hopcraft. One acre of land can yield 14.6 pounds of gazelle compared to only one pound of beef. And game can withstand drought better than cattle and other livestock. Game meat is also leaner than most traditional meats - and therefore a better source of protein.
Those who advocate the ranching method of conservation see Zimbabwe as a model. Populations of wild animals have increased by several hundred per cent since Zimbabwe allowed private ownership 15 years ago. While Kenya struggles with a poaching problem that has reduced its rhino population from 20,000 to 500 in the last 20 years, Zimbabwe’s commercial firms can afford to hire anti-poaching units to protect their game. Poachers in Zimbabwe have difficulty in marketing illegal skins because ranchers can legally sell products of much higher quality.
With a lower fat content than beef or pork and a price that equates with chicken, ranchers boast that wildlife will soon be a hit in every modern household.
Diana Brady / Gemini
Lung punctures? Like buckshot pellets? Could you explain, because kosher is entirely confusing to me.
Do all of that, and you'd have yourself a kasher wild turkey. Any takers?
Yo quiero Butterball!
"They killed my goat!" he said. "I'm like, 'What are you doing, man? You killed my goat!' "
An alternative goat was selected and slaughtered, along with two sheep, one of which Kirschenbaum described as "drop-dead gorgeous."
There was an old man of Khartoum
Who kept a tame sheep in his room,
‘To remind me,’ he said,
‘Of someone who’s dead,
But I never can recollect whom.’-- W.R. Inge.
Not kosher to me.
That is very interesting! I hadn't heard that one. Well, those lucky giraffes. I almost saw a whole line of giraffe patterned plates and huge neck steaks in the freezer. (Do we even eat "neck?")
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