With Locusts And Deer, Jerusalem Dinner Shakes Up The Kosher Kitchen

When 240 observant Jews sat down to the 18-course dinner earlier this month, they were served a veritable zoo of animals that were unlikely candidates to be eaten under traditional Jewish dietary laws, known as kashrut.

More than matzo balls: With locusts and deer, Jerusalem dinner shakes up the kosher kitchen

JERUSALEM (AP) — The men behind a unique six-hour eating marathon in Jerusalem want diners to know two things about locusts: First, they taste great stir-fried, and second, they're kosher.

When 240 observant Jews sat down to the 18-course dinner earlier this month, they were served a veritable zoo of animals that were unlikely candidates to be eaten under traditional Jewish dietary laws, known as kashrut.

Eating kosher, the organizers want to say, does not just mean chicken soup and matzo balls; the list of animals eaten by Jewish communities around the world throughout history is longer and stranger than most people think.

"It's about keeping a 2,500-year-old tradition in our hands," said Ari Greenspan, one of the organizers. "We have such a rich tradition but because of commercial food production, the only things slaughtered today are those that are financially feasible and grow quickly."

The biblical rules that govern Jewish diets include a blacklist of animals that may not be eaten, like pigs, vultures or fish without scales. Beef is kosher, pork is not. Trout is kosher, crab is not. Religious Jews abide by these rules to the letter, but probably wouldn't think to replace standards like beef or chicken with permitted alternatives like the water buffalo or pheasant served at the dinner.

The dinner's organizers — Greenspan, a dentist, and Ari Zivotofsky, a rabbi, both 47 — have spent decades investigating the nether reaches of the kosher kitchen.

The two met as teens in a Jewish religious school near Jerusalem. When they learned kosher slaughter, they realized the list of permitted animals was under threat because people were dying and taking little-known traditions with them. Some dietary directions not spelled out clearly in the Bible — particularly methods of poultry slaughter — must be passed down orally by a living witness, Greenspan said.

Without witnesses, more animals may go the way of the peacock. It was one of 30 birds pictured in a 150-year-old Italian book on kosher poultry, but no one alive remembers how to slaughter it in a kosher way, the organizers said. So today peacock is off the Jewish menu.

The two traveled to more than 40 countries, interviewing aging kosher butchers and documenting traditions like eating locusts, common among the Jews of Yemen.

The research culminated in the July 22 dinner.

Dishes included sparrows, doves, deer, roasted elk and grilled cow udders. Pheasants flown in from Rome were rolled into cinnamon pastille pastries. Greenspan and Zivotofsky found three kosher butchers, from Algeria, France and Israel, who remembered how to properly slaughter guinea fowl.

A cadre of rabbis and academics explained each course to the diners. They also discussed long-running debates over the kosher status of some animals, such as swordfish, which was also served.

Zivotofsky read from a ruling by a 16th-century rabbi who said that swordfish has scales in water, meaning it is kosher, though the rabbi claimed the scales fall off when the fish is out of the water. That made it suspect enough that Zivotofsky wouldn't eat it at the dinner, though others did.

The organizers also restored a species to the kosher menu: the shibuta, a fish mentioned in the Talmud, the ancient commentary on the Bible that defines Jewish law. It is believed to refer to the Barbus grypus, a carp that grows in the Euphrates River. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, Greenspan said, he asked a military rabbi to confirm the fish was kosher. It was. At the dinner, shibuta from Turkey was served as a fried fish cake.

The locusts were nearly a disaster.

"We had someone raising them for us in Israel, but then there was a heat wave," Greenspan said. "They all died. We were up a creek. Locusts are the big hit of dinner." The organizers heard about an institution in Britain that grows insects, and Greenspan called a British cousin who brought the locusts to Israel in his suitcase.

Accountant Gadi Levin tore off the six legs of one of the brown locusts, about the length of his thumb, and bit into its crunchy body. Stir-fried, the locust was earthy and redolent with soy sauce.

"It was delicious," said the 37-year-old South African-born Israeli. "It tasted like a barbecue crisp."

Comments

[A. Nuran]

Good. They're all kosher. Most of them are pretty tasty, especially the venison. Most of them are better for you than what we normally eat. There's no reason kosher has to mean the blandest and most artery clogging of Ashkenazi peasant food. The only reason most readers will turn up their noses at the menu is that they're not used to it.

The locusts which are without a doubt better for you than the poor grade of factory-farmed meat we usually eat. And for us Jews of the Amphibian persuasion it's pretty much locusts, crickets, black beetles or nothing :)

It's a pity they couldn't include giraffe, which was recently determined to be acceptable to the Orthodox. Even a palsied shochet with bad eyesight couldn't miss the target :)

[harold]

Thats nice, but I think I'll pass!

[Nobody]

Incredible! What valuable work they have done! God bless them.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Coming soon: Glatt kosher locusts.

[Streimel Shmuley]

But sometimes the locust flies with its mouth open it eats a fly. So whhen we cook it, we should it a fly because it is inside a locusts mouth? Yidden, flies are not kosher!

[What kind of goyishe name is Harold?]

I know these guys. They are so cool. They have a small restaurant on Ben Yehuda St. It is is called "Not Traif" and is closed on Fridays.

[A. Nuran]

SS, if you knew anything about biology you'd know how ignorant you sound. Cows eat grass and grain that have insects in them. A tiny grasshopper is incredibly less likely to swallow a fly which is almost as big as it is. Fish eat all kinds of treif things. No matter what sort of hescher your food has has you have eaten insects, mouse fragments, dung, bacteria and worms.

[critical_minyan]

an 18 course meal is totally unnecessary.
eat to live, dont live to eat.
eat modestly, if you need meat, eat a little on shabbes, otherwise you risk becoming an animal yourself.

[A. Nuran]

C_M, the point was to have one event where people could try all these things. One evening, eighteen dishes wastes an awful lot less time and money than eighteen nights, one dish each.

[Nachum]

And the dishes were all pretty small, and spread over six hours, and we were told not to eat too much of anything. Critical, you weren't there, so don't judge, huh?

[Jewish Cynic]

I was under the impression that poultry slaughter was less exacting than beef slaughter, interesting to hear specialized knowledge is required to shecht different spices of bird.
I recall being told as a kid that locusts were technically kosher but we wouldn't eat them because we don't know which specific locust like insect the torah referred to.

So Nachum how 'bout more of a review?
How was that pheasant pastry?

I hope they carefully washed the locusts.
Wouldn't want any broccoli in your bugs...

[rebeljew]

According to Rashi in Chumash, peacock equals "Duchifath", a non-kosher bird.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

Nice to read a fun story that has nothing to do with frum scammers, criminals, fornicators, embezzelers, child rapists,
drug smugglers, tax evaders and rabbis who preach murdering innocent people.

Gut Shabos!

[Teddy]

Jewish cynic, that about the locusts is a widespread misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that "We the Ashkenazim" equals "We the Jews".

The nice story is simply that there are two IMPORTANT swarming locusts, according to the Teimani one of those is kosher, the other treif, now the treif one is found from the Canary Islands to the Kiwi Islands (New Zealand, for the slow of thinking), in a large part of the old world, including Ashkenaz, the kosher one is found in a smaller part of the world, not in Ashkenaz. As the last swarms in Ashkenaz were medieval, and the kosher locusts weren't available Ashkenazinm forgot, the Teimani Jews did not.

There is however a North-African Sephardic opinion that both locust species are kosher, (come on, we are talking about Jews!), the Teimani are judged the greater authority, and nobody disagrees with their tradition about which ones are kosher. Yemen is far from Poland, and ignorance or arrogance makes Ashkenazim elevate the Ashkenazic experience to the Jewish one, and that is both not nice and another argement that Ashenazic Jews are not spiritually superior to other people.

[Teddy]

Oh, and don't worry about broccoli, though they will eat about everuthing, they eat grasses by preference...

[Teddy]

Oh, JC, if I have been a bit Ashkenazic bashing, it was not intended in a bad way, but "pure traditional" Ashkenazim are much more shocked by this story, at least, in my experience, than say, sort of secular Israelis, so...

[Jordan 1]

cake is a nice dessert, but it's easy to get fat, so try to eat less...

[David]

A nice story (for once). I believe there is also a similar kosher-fest held in New York City from time to time. I am glad giraffe was NOT on the menu - it would have been a chillul hashem to eat such an endangered animal. (It has now been determined to be more endangered than ever as it was only recently worked out via genetic studies that there are about five species of giraffes, not one, even though they look very similar.)

[PishPosh]

I find it funny that the Teimanim have this Mesorah its okay, but Ashkenazim dont so they avoid it.

Reminds me of "Inherit the Wind" based on the 1925 Scopes Evolution trial in Tenn. when Henry Drummond defense attorney for the teacher chargd with teaching evolution in clas asks Matthew Harrison Brady prosecutor, where did Cains wife come from as she was never mentioned and then to press the point home he says "Ya figure somebody pulled off a creation in the next county"?
Thats the problem with Rabbanut. They would have you think that somewhere another group of people got a Torah and knew which grasshoppers to eat.

[Nobody]

"I recall being told as a kid that locusts were technically kosher but we wouldn't eat them because we don't know which specific locust like insect the torah referred to."

You were likely told that by an Ashkenazi or Sephardi rabbi whose "kehila" lost the mesorah for identifying which locusts were kosher. However, this mesorah was maintained by the Teymanim to this day. So now we can all know and learn to recognize which locusts are kosher and which are not. I personally would probably not eat a kosher locust but that's a weakness on my part.