Animal stock (or broth) is basically melted protein, and there are all sorts of difference between plant and animal protein. One of the single most abundant proteins in an animal is collagen, which makes up most of the connective tissue. Even in muscle tissue (i.e. meat) that makes up a broth, there’s a lot of collagen holding together all of the muscle cells. Wiki sez that something like ~30% of protein in your body. I’d WAG that a very large majority of protein in stock or broth is collagen, since the meat (mostly actin and myosin from muscle cells) doesn’t dissolve even after many hours.
I can think of all sorts of biochemical tests to identify any specific protein, but most of what I know are very sensitive and specific methods. I’d wager that there’s some sort of old-school biochemistry that can positively identify collagen.
Off the top of my head I don’t know precisely what makes up a vegetable stock, but plants certainly don’t have any collagen.
It depends on the vegetarian. I have a Hindu friend who would not ever knowingly consume beef broth. However, when it comes to soups made with chicken broth (but no actual meat in the soup), she has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. She decided that she wanted soup more than she wanted to avoid the possibility of chicken broth in soup at the office cafeteria.
People do what works for them at the time.
But if you’re cooking for a vegetarian/vegan, it’s best to use veggie broth.
I don’t know what makes the stock/broth, but I used to cook up a really good one using water that potatoes had been boiled in, off-cuts of veggies (tops and tails of carrots), onion, garlic, salt, pepper. Maybe some herbs. Even my dad liked it, and he’s mister EAT MEAT.
I don’t know that a kosher restaurant is required to be closed on the sabbath. I can think of quite a few that are closed on the sabbath. But, they’re owned and operated by observant Jewish families. Manufactured foods that are certified kosher can be made during the sabbath. I need the opinion of an Industrial Strength Jew on this.
I am a somewhat observant Jew. I do not keep kosher, but I avoid the consumption of non-kosher animal species. I’m kinda loosey-goosey on the milk/meat thing–I don’t eat cheeseburgers or cook meat and dairy together at home, but I’ll eat meat dishes at restaurants that I know have dairy in them.
My bona fides established, my understanding is that a kosher establishment may be open on Shabbat if any Jewish owners derive no profit from it. I argue this by example: I lived in Berkeley when Noah’s Bagels first opened there. It was certified kosher, but was open 7 days/week. This feat was achieved by at least one owner being non-Jewish, and all profit from Saturday sales went only to that person or persons. I think Berkeley also had a certified-kosher vegetarian Chinese place that was open every day. There are some restrictions on observant Jews eating food cooked entirely by non-Jews (or non-observant Jews). I think these are usually gotten around by having a strictly observant Jew do at least one task necessary for the cooking–something like turning on the oven first thing in the morning (which could not happen on Saturday, but strictly observant Jews wouldn’t be eating that food anyway).
On an earlier point: while foods marked as kosher and pareve (neither meat nor milk) are often vegan, they aren’t always. Fish is considered pareve, which is why most Jews will eat lox and cream cheese (but not all–don’t ask). Also, there are technical rules (about which I don’t know details) that allow for certain things which eventually become food ingredients to be kosher and pareve, even though they are derived from non-kosher animals. I am fairly certain, however, that plastic bags marked with a kosher certification do not use animal fats as lubrication agents–the fats would need to be from kosher-slaughtered animals to qualify, and then the bags could not be used for storing dairy, which would be impractical.
I think pretty much all beer and hard liquor is considered kosher without certification if it meets certain basic ingredient restrictions (no grapes–again, don’t ask), whether or not a fish-derived fining agent is used.
If it helps, nobody is killing fish just for the guts. The guts are a byproduct from the regular fishing industry and the amount of guts thrown away far exceeds the amount used for isinglass.
No matter how you cut it, food processing of almost any kind is kind of gross when you boil it down. Manure makes great fertilizer for your vegetables, too. There’s no getting away from it.
Same here. Even our meat-loving Polish family would make a vegetarian borscht (rather than on the usual beef stock) when there were pescatarian restrictions, as on Lenten Fridays and Christmas Eve,
They don’t use tallow anymore, but they do use beef-derived flavorings, as far as I know. Their own website says they fry the fries in oil containing “natural beef flavoring,” so I’d avoid it if I were to keep vegetarian.
And here I thought that cats licking plastic bags could be explained by the known fact that cats are crazy. It is the simpler explanation, after all.
Speaking of such things, I understand that the criterion for an animal-derived product from an unclean animal to become kosher is that it must become non-food at some point during processing, with “non-food” being defined as “a dog won’t eat it”. Thus, for instance, gelatin can be kosher even if it was ultimately derived from pigs, because even though a dog will eat pigs, and a dog will eat gelatin, a dog won’t eat some of the intermediate steps. But I am not a Talmud scholar, so I might be mistaken on that.
Me too. And I can’t imagine a priest saying it was OK to knowingly eat soup made with beef broth on a Friday during Lent “because you’re making an effort to be meatless”*. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but it’s certainly not the standard interpretation. I can however, see a priest saying there’s nothing wrong with having eaten a vegetable soup that you thought was vegetarian when you were eating it and only later found out it was made with beef broth- but that’s something different.
*Especially since there doesn’t seem to be any effort in the example if the person knows it was made with beef broth- there’s vegan vegetarian soup/ lobster bisque and/or clam chowder most Fridays and if they serve sandwiches as well as soup my guess is they have grilled cheese or tuna salad.
