I’m having some Jewish acquaintences over for dinner. They are not super religious, but I do know they avoid mixing dairy and meat. I’m not all that clear on kosher rules and have some questions:
Any other things to keep in mind?
No. people who avoid mixing milk and meat usually wait a number of hours (which varies by observance) between milk and meat meals.
No. Chicken is meat.
Eggs are pareve and may be served with either milk or meat.
and since you asked, if they don’t mix milk and meat, they may follow the rule with fish- it must have fins and scales. No shellfish. Fish is either considered pareve or as a ‘dairy’ (as in ‘not eaten with meat’).
Well, no pork, naturally. You should check and see about their feelings about kosher slaughter. Most non-Hasidic Jews aren’t this picky, but some feel strongly about having a “meat” set of cookware and silverware and a “dairy” set. It’s probably best to ask your friends exactly what they’re alright with- my Jewish friends run the gamut from “I’d really prefer to use my own silverware, so I know where it’s been” to “Sandwiches? Ham and cheese on challah for me, please.”
Bacon Salt
“cause its Kosher”
It also contains milk.
have they already accepted your invitation? If they have, then they probably have no problem using your dishes and silverware, unless they said otherwise. and not that what everyone’s said so far isn’t good advice, but wouldn’t it be best to just ask your friends what they do and don’t eat?
I found this website that might be useful:
Definitely ask your friends what’s acceptable to them. Observation of Kashrut (the Kosher rules) vary greatly.
Clearly they aren’t on the super-strict side of the spectrum because they accepted your invitation. (If they were, they wouldn’t be willing to eat food that had prepared in your non-kosher kitchen for fear of contamination.)
As an example, speaking for myself, I’m willing to use non-kosher utensils, cooking tools, etc. But I won’t eat non-kosher meat or shellfish, nor eat milk with meat (which includes chicken). When I say non-kosher meat, I don’t mean only pork, but also meat that could be kosher (chicken, turkey, beef, etc.) but wasn’t killed according the kosher rules. Note that by default, meat available in most of the world outside Israel isn’t kosher, even if it’s a kosher animal. You’d need to get special kosher meat from a kosher butcher or a supermarket with a well-stocked kosher section.
My family’s tradition is to wait “a little bit” (around 10 minutes, I guess) after dairy before eating meat, and 3 hours after meat before eating dairy.
But I don’t care about non-kosher wine or non-kosher cheese. Some people do. And for processed products, I don’t insist on a hechsher (kosher certification symbol) if the ingredients pass my personal rules. Some people do.
I wouldn’t expect a friend to know these (sometimes apparently nonsensical and contradictory) rules, so I usually just say “treat me like a vegetarian that eats fish but not shellfish” and that’s good enough. My close friends have known me long enough to know the rules, and sometimes will buy kosher meat if I’m coming over, but I wouldn’t expect them to go out of their way to do so.
But again, that’s just me. Other Kosher-keeping Jews will naturally have their own (sometimes wiggly) line in the sand.
(BTW, for chicken paprikash, we use Tofutti brand “better than sour cream” dairy-free sour cream substitute. If you can find it, it’s yummy.)
Ask your friends. You can’t go far wrong by serving steak, veggies and a salad. But ask.
That’s the best advice yet.
Don’t mess with meat. Treat your Jewish guest as a vegetarian “lite” (the kind who eats milk, eggs and fish) with a shellfish allergy, and you’ll be fine.
Of course, if you do make steak, rub it down with olive oil before cooking.
You could easily go wrong with that if your guests keep kosher.
If I came over to your house, I wouldn’t eat the steak unless it was a kosher steak. Unless you live in Israel or keep kosher yourself, the steaks you normally buy are almost certainly not kosher. Unless I know you keep kosher or are very knowledgeable about kashrut, I’d probably err on the side of caution and not eat any meat at your house.
The steak can’t be cooked or served with any dairy products. Some people like to cook or serve steaks with butter and/or cheese- that’s out. Likewise the veggies and salad. The veggies would have to be prepared and served with no butter or other dairy products. The salad dressing would also have to be dairy-free.
I will wait one hour after having meat before I will eat anything dairy. Some people will wait up to six hours. One hour is probably the minimum wait I’ve heard of. I don’t have a set waiting period after eating dairy before I’ll eat meat, but I wouldn’t want to combine them at the same meal- it would feel too much like cheating.
This is what I normally ask for when I’m going to eat with someone who doesn’t keep kosher. Treat us as people who don’t eat meat, poultry, or shellfish but do eat milk, eggs, and fish.
Be careful on the fish, though. Not all fish that are not shellfish are kosher. The non-kosher fish you’re most likely to encounter include catfish, monkfish, and swordfish (though some people who keep kosher will eat swordfish, a lot won’t). Trout, tuna, salmon, flounder, cod, pollock, tilapia, sea bass, and mahi-mahi are all kosher.
Ditto on the “ask your friends” front. I almost always run my menu plans past my FIL just to be sure I’m not accidentally making something he won’t eat… and he’s on the barely-kosher side of the spectrum.
Unless you ask them, you won’t know for sure just how kosher they are (like it’s been pointed out, they’re not likely to be ultra-kosher if they’re eating at your very unkosher house, but that still leaves a whole lot of variations ranging from fairly observant to very lax). I’m sure they’d be quite happy to tell you about their preferences, and are probably very used to being asked at this point.
If you’re not particularly comfortable with asking, plan for a dairy meal, since there will be a lot less stress about what’s in and what’s out. A goat cheese and roasted vegetable quiche with a simple balsamic vinaigrette would be lovely, for example.
As a bonus, dairy meal means you can cream with your coffee at the end of the meal… dairy-free creamer is a travesty. shudder
Thanks to all the posters. I really learned a lot in this thread. I didn’t understand how much keeping kosher affects how people live and have to plan their meals, I thought it was more of a “don’t eat pork” thing. The idea of a dairy meal is great. It would let me serve home made ice cream as well.
Question: why isn’t swordfish kosher? I understand catfish and monkfish which are bottom feeders.
As I understand it, swordfish are not kosher because their scales cannot be removed without tearing the skin of the fish.
For some people it is. “I keep kosher” can mean a lot of different things to different people. It can mean anything from “I don’t eat pork except in Chinese restaurants” to “I will not eat any food prepared in a non-kosher kitchen”. It’s a lot like “I’m a vegetarian” that way. There are people who will describe themselves as vegetarians but occasionally eat poultry or fish, all the way to strict vegans, and lots of variations in between those extremes.
Any adult who keeps kosher is quite used to being asked about what they will and won’t eat. If you ask in a respectful manner, you won’t offend us.
I started keeping kosher as an adult, and I know- it’s hard for someone who wasn’t used to reading food labels. It took me a year to really learn it. I understand completely if someone who doesn’t keep kosher has trouble understanding all our rules. I don’t think you’re stupid or anything like that. Anyone who keeps kosher and thinks it should be easy for someone who doesn’t keep kosher to understand it is ignorant.
I knew someone in college who got ham and cheese sandwiches on matzo during Passover.
Very interesting thread! I have two questions:
If I had a kosher-keeping guest, I’d definitely want to accommodate them, but I’d also expect them to lay down the law for me so that I wouldn’t be guessing. If I violated a rule they didn’t tell me about and they refused to eat, I’d be mildly pissed.
Daniel
In order for a fish to be kosher, the basic rule of thumb is that it must have both scales and fins, and it should be possible to scrape the scales from the skin. Swordfish, catfish and monkfish don’t fit into those guidelines… nor do marlin, eels and skate, in case you’re curious.
I doubt the ancient Israelis has much experience with catfish or monkfish, or all that many bottom-feeding fish for that matter. 
My WAG is that this particular rule came about due to shellfish, which spoils quickly (especially in the absence of modern refrigeration) and can have some very unpleasant consequences once spoiled. It’s just
Yes. If someone invites me to eat with them, at their house or at a restaurant, I get the “oh, dear” apologetic expression and explain my dietary restrictions to them. How else are they going to know? It’s not like you could know from looking at me that I keep kosher, and how strictly I keep kosher.
And rightly so. It might be something that just slipped through the cracks (though I’m pretty good at explaining kosher to people who don’t keep it, since I deal with my parents who don’t keep kosher all the time), in which case I’d be very apologetic. I wouldn’t get upset at you for violating a rule unless you did something like trying to trick me into eating a dish with ham in it.
I probably wouldn’t refuse to eat entirely, unless something was wrong with every dish, but I might not eat a particular dish.
Tradition.
To speculate on why that tradition exists, I think the Talmud or something might say that meat takes longer to digest than milk, so you wait after eating meat but not milk.
Jared Diamond said in Collapse that taboos on eating particular kinds of fish or seafood are common in cultures all over the world. They can spoil easily and badly, so that would make sense.
Given the widely varying diets that many people seem to have nowadays, if I invite people over for dinner, I will always ask if there are any dietary restrictions I need to be aware of. I feel like it’s my job as host to do everything I reasonably can to make my guests comfortable. This way I can be made aware of any food allergies, health concerns, religious restrictions, or simply, “I don’t like broccoli.” I think if asked in a non-judgmental, I-just-want-to-be-a-good-host manner, it invites the guests to make their requests/restrictions known, and avoids any uncomfortable moments at the actual dinner/event.
So, yeah, I would say to just ask your guests if there is anything you need to be aware of regarding their diet.