Thursday, July 09, 2009

TV Kashrut Problem

There's a very popular cooking program on Israel's Chanel 1, Chaim Cohen's "Shum, Pilpel v'Zayit," "Garlic, Pepper and Olives." I have no idea if their studio kitchen is actually kosher, or sort of kosher or doesn't even pretend to be kosher.

I never saw him demonstrate a recipe combining meat and milk or some traif ingredient.

The problem is something that someone who only knows "the basics" of kashrut can get caught in. He used liver in a recipe as if if was regular meat. Liver requires a special kashering process, burning over a flame, so the blood will be burnt, destroyed. Other meat and poultry (poultry livers are kashered as beef livers) are soaked and salted.

Especially nowadays when we buy our meat and poultry, all kashered, cut and frequently frozen, ready for cooking, or even cooked and ready to eat, many people are unaware that liver demands special care. I've been married almost forty years, and I only kashered liver once. We buy chopped liver ready-made, and that's a rare week.

Liver is sold frozen next to all the other meat parts, which are already kashered. So I wonder if all the consumers realize that they have to treat liver differently.

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