When it comes to keeping kosher, is a reuben sandwich (corned beef, swiss cheese, kraut, 1000 island dressing on rye bread) considered a kosher meal? I’m asking because this has always been something that bugged me. From my rudimentary understanding of a kosher diet, mixing meat and milk products is forbidden, yet I enjoyed a wonderful reuben sandwich at Lou & Hy’s Deli in Akron. My ignorance on the subject would stagger a team of oxen. Any help would be appreciated…
A traditional reuben certainly would NOT be kosher. Mixing Swiss cheese with corned beef would be verboten.
A true kosher deli would not serve ANY dairy products. But then, not all Jewish delis are, or even claim to be, kosher.
Another question arises. Am I way off-base when I think a Reuben sandwich has anything to do the American Jewish culinary tradition?
Absolutely not. True kosher delis serve either meat or dairy, but never both together. That would be ‘treif’, which translates as ‘broken’
ETA: According to wikipedia, originals of the Reuben sandwich are in dispute. Probably the name “Reuben” gives it a Jewish feel.
Neither origin is proven, but both link to Jewish-American delis. There are lots of American-Jewish culinary creations that aren’t kosher.
ETA- Ninja’d by Annie-Xmas but came to different conclusions so I think I’m OK. 
Ask two Jews get three answers.
I take it that it is not forbidden for an observant Jew to cook or prepare non-kosher food, as long as they don’t eat it themselves? Is there any stigma associated with doing this?
–Mark
My (admittedly limited) understanding is that a Jew wishing to keep to the laws of kashrut would avoid doing so in a business setting, because it is prohibited for them to “benefit” from certain categories of non-kosher foods. Selling such foods for money = a benefit.
They could, arguably, give such foods as gifts though.
Malthus is correct. Any true kosher Jewish business establishment is certified as such by a rabbi, and must have the certificate hanging prominently on the wall. My store only sells dairy or pareve (not meat or dairy) items.
We are forbidden from bringing any food into the store that is not wrapped or in a container. We can only eat food in the backbreak room.
In the kosher deli I ate at, when ordering a cheeseburger, the cheese came cold, on the top burger bun, on a separate little plate.
But do note that a lot of Jewish people do not keep Kosher.
Some of the kosher laws are phrased in terms of what can be eaten, but the origin of the no-meat-and-dairy law is a passage that says “Thou shalt not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”. Since the prohibition is against cooking, not just against eating, I expect that a Jew would not be allowed to prepare such a meal for a gentile, either, not even in a non-business setting.
Of course, a Jew would also have no problem with gentiles preparing and eating such food themselves. Unlike many religions, Jews consider the vast majority of the Law to be binding only on them, not on anyone else (the only Laws non-Jews are expected to follow are the seven Noachide commandments, which most non-Jews follow anyway).
wiki:
*The seven Noahide laws as traditionally enumerated are:[7]
Do not deny God.
Do not blaspheme God.
Do not murder.
Do not engage in illicit sexual relations.
Do not steal.
Do not eat from a live animal.
Establish courts/legal system to ensure obedience to the law.*
Apparently it is of some value to a Observant couple to have a Gentile friend who follows those rules and can help out on the Sabbath.
I have to say tho, a lot of people- Observant and gentile- arent always good at following “Do not engage in illicit sexual relations.”
This is true; a Jew cannot cook milk in meat. Here’s an actual Rabbi on the subject.
Apparently, that’s the only example, though. Otherwise, a Jew may cook non-kosher food for a non-Jew. The problem is, since the prohibition passes on to the dishware, it effectively makes cooking anything problematic in a non-Kosher kitchen:
Yup.
Reuben’s Kosher deli in Boston makes the best roast beef sandwiches that I have ever eaten, but no Reuben sandwiches.
‘Thou shalt not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.’
That looks like a pretty nice loophole. A kid is a young goat. So as long as you don’t cook a young goat in its mother’s milk, you should be good. 
Why is that, if I may ask?
Probably cross contamination.
Several posters have already given excellent answers, so I’ll just add that kosher-observant people who really want this kind of stuff badly (such as me) can take comfort in the many varieties of vegetarian meat and vegetarian cheese that are on the market nowadays. Many of them are certified pareve and can therefore be eaten together with the other kind. For example, Morningstar Farms makes several varieties of fake meat, and I love a slice of melted cheese on top of it. Or I’ll put a slice of Dalya brand fake cheese on a realburger. This is not a plug for those brands - there are many out there, and they taste more and more like the real thing with each passing year.
FWIW, I’m a vegetarian because I don’t like meat, and that’s the long and short of it, but there are several fake meat products I like. I love Tofurky, and I hate turkey. I love soy dogs, and I hate hot dogs. I love soy bacon, and the smell of actual bacon cooking nauseates me. And yes, I actually did taste bacon once. I found it disgusting, and was sorry I tried it. It was the texture more than the taste. How is it that the stuff is so popular? The only thing more disgusting than bacon was caviar. I HATE caviar. Just the sight of it makes me gag.
The Law as actually observed is in many cases considerably more restrictive than what’s set down in Scripture. Partly, this is from interpretations of what the Scripture “really means”, and partly it’s from the practice of “building a fence around the Torah”, following more restrictive human-made laws to make it more difficult to accidentally break the God-given Laws.
Of note, many (though not all: As they say, two Jews, three answers) authorities would even prohibit things which appear to violate the Laws, such as Keeve’s vegetarian meat/cheese substitutes. The thinking is that, if Keeve is known to be a righteous man, and another Jew sees him eating what appears to be a cheeseburger, then that other Jew might be misled into thinking that a cheeseburger is OK.
Surely not! There are Kosher fake bacon bits.
After discussion on the SDMB, I convinced my Wife enough that she asked a Rabbi about fowl and dairy. He responded, “No hen ever nursed her chicks”.
Most Jewish things I have encountered are a way to legally find find print to avoid the worst laws, like burning for adultery.
A suicide cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery, but if he committed suicide, he was obviously insane and not responsible for his actions.