Loss of kosher status leaves Orthodox Jews missing chain-store experience
A Dunkin’ Donuts has lost it’s ‘kosher certificate’ because it started selling sausage bagels. Observant Jews can no longer go there. Why not? Is there a a rule that they can’t eat kosher food if non-kosher food is served in the same establishment?
There’s a rule saying that foods prepared in a kitchen with non-kosher foods are not kosher, if you’re very strict. Sometimes you can get away with having two sets of pots, dishes and utensils - one for meat and one for dairy - but if their certification has been yanked, most likely they couldn’t (or didn’t) make the concession. And my guess is that the sausage contains pork, which is not kosher even for people who don’t keep strict kosher. The sausage roll may touch surfaces that otherwise kosher food touches, rendering it not kosher.
It’s probably more of an issue about the kitchen. How would they keep anything involved in the preparation of treif products separate from the stuff used to prepare kosher products.
Interesting… there’s only 30-40 kosher ones, and they decide on a case-by-case basis. I guess whether the # of kosher customers is greater than the # of ones who want meat breakfast sandwiches.
The most amazing thing about that story is that to get around the provision that kosher food must be prepared only by Jews they had a Rabbi light the pilot on the stove each morning. Sometimes religion just blows my mind.
As far as I know, there’s no rule that says that kosher food must be prepared only by Jews. Many kosher products are manufactured in large factories that employ people of all religions. Some things, like wine, are subject to stricter rules. In general, supervision by a rabbi from a kashrut certification organization is sufficient.
Having separate meat and milk dishes wouldn’t work, since their meat isn’t kosher to begin with. (Kosher meat needs to be from particular animals, slaughtered in a particular fashion by trained people, then treated in a specific way after slaughtering.) Once they’re preparing non-kosher meat in their store, how am I supposed to know that the non-kosher meat never, ever came into contact with the food they’re still selling to me as kosher? Or the cooking implements they’re using to prepare the ‘kosher’ food?
In terms of the pilot light, it’s not that a Jew must light the pilot light, it’s that an observant Jew needs to be somehow involved in the cooking process of cooked foods for them to be kosher. If an observant Jew lights the pilot light when the restaurant first becomes kosher, and then whenever necessary afterwards (how often does your pilot light go out? Mine has been on for months, at this point.), it’s the easiest, most painless way for someone to be involved in something necessary for cooking. You could have them man the fryer, instead, but then they’d have to be there all the time!
Visiting Israel as a teenager, I had one of those small mind-blowing moments when I realized that I could just waltz into a mall food court and eat something besides ice cream. I mean, it would never have occurred to me before to do something crazy like eat pizza in a mall! Dunkin’ Donuts and some ice cream chains are just about the only chain stores where people who keep kosher can eat, in most of the US. Some drinks are kosher at Starbucks, but the only coffee chain with kosher pastries that I know of is The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in California, which is a mere rumor of wonderment to most kashrut-observant people here in NY. The first three kosher Subways have opened in the last year, and I haven’t been to any of them as yet, but if you’re curious as to how fast-food deprived/fascinated many Orthodox people feel, see this Chowhound thread from their kosher subsection on the new Subway in Flatbush, Brooklyn: Chowhound - The Site for Food Nerds: Cooking Tips, Culinary How-To's, & More. (On the other hand, the lack of kosher fast food meant that I got to read ‘Fast Food Nation’ feeling slightly, irrationally, smug, as I had never eaten in such places.)
The second kosher Dunkin’ Donuts in America opened in my hometown when I was in first grade, a few blocks from the yeshiva elementary school. My teacher brought us a box of Munchkins as a reward after our class play, and we were all blown away. How had we ever lived without these?
This doesn’t make sense to me… If the pilot has to be lit each morning, and it’s done by a rabbi, what do they do on Saturdays? Lighting a fire is one of the things which is very unambiguously forbidden on the Sabbath, to orthodox Jews.
I don’t think it’s done every day, although of course halachic opinions may vary - I think it’s done when they first made the restaurant kosher, and then only when the pilot light goes out, which isn’t all that often. Of course, once I was in a sushi restaurant, and when the sushi chef wanted to use a blowtorch to sear the top of something, he got an observant Jewish employee to come and light the blowtorch for him, as that doesn’t stay on for a long period of time once you light it.
Observant Jews usually wear a yarmulke on their heads (for males). This is a public way of showing to yourself and your associates that you take your religion seriously.
And it also (like any uniform) places on you the responsibility of acting appropriately to the symbol you are wearing
. So many orthodox Jews will not set foot inside any restaurant where some of the food is not strictly kosher, because it would mislead other Jews that all the food there is kosher. On the logic that,“if I saw an orthodox guy eat there, then it must be kosher, and okay for me to eat there, too.”
Krispy Kreme is still kosher.
Not all of them are. There is one in the Baltimore suburbs, which I’ve made trips to for Orthodox friends, but they certainly are not all kosher.
Really? Ours prominently posts it’s certification. I just assumed it was a franchise-wide thing.
I know all the Krispy Kremes in New York City are, but I don’t know beyond that. Their website does not mention it, which implies not - companies that are entirely kosher tend to have it somewhere in their FAQ, or even trumpet it in their ‘about’ section, in the same sentence as unrelated claims about it being all-natural, organic, or dairy-free.
We have one of those combined DD/Baskin-Robbins stores. The donut side is not kosher, but many of the pre-made ice creams are. You’re on your own if you want any toppings, though, since the sprinkles, etc. are not marked as kosher.
Robin
Kosher Krispy Kreme? :eek:
I guess that’s what they served at the Krusty Komedy Klassic at the Apollo Theater.
Worked with Orthodox Jews who didn’t much care which DD you bought your donuts from. They assumed all DDs were kosher because the ones in Skokie were. I didn’t try too hard (thought I did try) to convince them otherwise because that little bit of self-delusion meant I didn’t have to go a couple miles out of my way when picking up donuts for the office.
Yeah, I know. I’m going to Hell.
Are all Chinese restaurants given a special rabbinical dispensation or are some of them actually kosher? It’s just that I can’t wrap my head around the concept of kosher Chinese food.
I doubt you’ll ever find kosher-certified mu-shu pork 
Yes, Chinese restaurants (along with any other kind of restaurant) have to be certified to be kosher. It’s not a special dispensation - to be certified, they have to follow the same rules as any other kosher establishment. They serve a lot of beef, chicken, and veal, and some tofu; no pork or shrimp. Most kosher American Chinese places have also started to serve sushi over the last decade, which I don’t think you see as much in non-kosher restaurants. (Sushi’s very popular with the kosher-observant crowd - you see it everywhere.) Otherwise, I think they’re quite similar to your average American Chinese food, ie not Chinese at all. I don’t think most Americans have ever had even semi-authentic Chinese food, so most kosher-observant folks are on the same plain, there. The only ‘real’ Chinese food I’ve ever had was at Buddha Bodhai, in New York’s Chinatown, which is entirely vegan, fully kosher-certified, and mostly full of Chinese people. (I always take it as a good sign when there are people from the same region as the food being served.) Why do you have such a hard time with the concept?
Probably because of all of the urban legends surrounding what REALLY :rolleyes: goes on in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants. Nothing based in fact.