Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Is The Veggie Option Really Kosher?

Many well-meaning Jews who try to eat only kosher food order vegetarian when prepared kosher food isn't available.

Jewcy revealed that Natalie Portman is one of them and the efforts some cooks made to accomodate her "dietary requests."  There are numerous halachik pitfalls when trusting vegetarianism to be kosher.

One friend discovered that she had been given shrimp, because the host was sure that vegetarians ate fish and didn't know that shrimp is forbidden.  Many oils have lard and grills and frying pans aren't cleaned between the bacon and the vegetable omelet.

I don't want to go too hard on this, because I don't want someone to give up on kashrut totally.

2 comments:

Shorty said...

from personal experience, its always best to ask questions about the veggie options. Some restaurants will throw in chicken broth into their recipes. I was at one tex mex place with a specific vegetarian menu. I asked about the refried beans. I thought it curious they would have two versions. I asked if there was beef/chicken broth. The waiter came back with "both". So it is always best to question.

Batya said...

Good points, Shorty, thanks!