Thanks to Eve Jochnowitz for this guest post. Eve teaches Yiddish, Jewish Studies, and Culinary History at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Culinary Center of New York - she is also a Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA member at the 14th Street Y in NYC.
The rich soils of the United States are full of all sorts of beneficial insects and nutrients that nourish delicious produce; and a great many of us are becoming personally acquainted with this miraculous dirt in our CSA share! We appreciate it, of course, but at some point we need to wash it all off.
De-bugging one’s vegetables is a challenge in any kosher kitchen, and a number of home cooks are reasonably concerned that using organic produce might expose us to more insects, making the inspection process more labor-intensive. In fact, the opposite is true. According to mashgikhim with extensive bug-checking experience, non-organic greens are not in fact less infested than organic greens; they are merely infested with smaller, more tenacious predators that have become resistant to pesticides.
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My grandpa, who I call “Papa,” turned 98 on Sunday. While I go to New York every few months to visit him, I haven’t especially timed it around his birthday before. Given that he almost died in November, he made it clear months ago that if he should still be here, he wanted me there to help him celebrate his birthday.
At first, he said, no party. But there are a few people who knew, and asked if they could come, and the next thing you know, we’re having a small party. So what to serve? Papa, who is pretty-much housebound these days, picked the restaurant. He said we’d pass around the menu, everyone would order what they’d want, and we’d order in. The restaurant he picked was Mama Mexico, a very good (non-kosher) Mexican restaurant not far from his apartment.
He had a few bottles of wine lying around, and I ordered a cake. But when I first arrived on Thursday, Hillary, his wonderful care-giver from Trinidad, told me that he had made a funny request. For hors d’oeuvres, he wanted shrimp cocktail.
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People always assume that because I don’t eat meat I am somehow offended by its very presence. As a vegetarian I am expected to whip out a soapbox at the slightest provocation and let loose a gospel of animal cruelty, and condemnation of the meatpacking industry. I am supposed to be filled with love for all living things, a warm fuzzy type who could no more eat a cow than she could step on an ant.
Truthfully, I became a vegetarian sixteen years ago because I wanted ice cream for dessert and my family had just had chicken for Shabbat dinner. Faced with waiting three hours before a bowl of mint chocolate chip, I vowed never to be fleishig again, and have stood by my word ever since. I don’t eat poultry, beef, or lamb. I do eat fish, and eggs, and I maintain my belief that a day without good cheese or ice cream is not worth living.
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With the 4th of July coming up, BBQ - corn and veggie dogs, yes, but also steaks, hamburgers, and chicken - is on just about everyone’s mind. But the May 12th raid on Agriprocesors kosher meat plant is likely to cloud the celebration for many kosher keeping consumers. (Take the email I got last night from a friend as an example: “My grand plan to order meat from Fresh Direct was shot, because all their meat is from Aaron’s/Rubashkin.”)
In honor of Independence Day, The Jew & The Carrot spoke with Avram Lyon, a former employee of the Jewish Labor Committee who currently works as an independent consultant for labor and Jewish communal organizations (including Hekhsher Tzedek) for his take on the situation. Lyon spoke about the current state of Postville, BBYO’s recent decision to stop serving Agriprocessor’s meat, and what the raid might mean for the kosher food industry.
Read the interview below the jump.
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Around these parts, Jcarrot readers already know that “Jewish food” means more than rugelach and matzoh balls. Now, you have a chance to strut your Jewish culinary prowess at the 92nd Street Y’s cooking challenge: Mega Bites. The Y is sponsoring a Jewish recipe contest, which will be taste-tested by a highly esteemed panel of judges including Gael Green, Mick Colameco, Arthur Schwartz (our favorite Brooklyn foodie!), Rozanne Gold, and Marc Murhpy.
All recipes need to be kosher-style, take less than an hour to make, and blur the lines between tradition and innovation. The winning recipe will appear on the 92Y Tribeca Cafe menu for one month - and the lucky winner will receive a round-trip ticket for two on Jet Blue!
Check out contest rules here.
Related post:
Is This Food Jewish?
The NY Times Dining Section reported today about the havoc that summer camp food can wreak on kids’ health. Tara Parker-Pope wrote:
“[My 9-year old daughter’s] camp is typical of those around the country: days packed with archery, swimming and adventure climbing; menus packed with soft drinks, burgers, chicken nuggets and, once a week, cheese fries… ‘Camp food is terrible,’ said Susan B. Roberts, director of the energy metabolism laboratory at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. ‘The problem is that they are doing what is easiest — the lowest common denominator for what kids like, and on top of that usually it has to be not something that goes bad and is no work to prepare.’”
Meanwhile, although they will likely continue to offer grilled cheese and potato chips this summer, it seems that BBYO is not settling for the lowest common denominator when it comes to the meat served at their summer camps. The Jewish youth organization put out a statement urging camp partners to avoid using Agriprocessors products.
Read BBYO’s statement below:
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Is it just me, or is the foodie world going a little treif crazy recently? Don’t get me wrong, I’m decidedly not the most kosher keeping consumer on the planet. (Aside from being a vegetarian and therefore avoiding a lot of the major “no-nos,” I’m generally content to eat most unhekhshered products and eat out at non-kosher restaurants.)
But somehow, I feel like everywhere I turn lately, non-kosher foods are screaming at me - particularly bacon, as pork-anything has become trendy, and more recently lobster. Witness a few recent examples below.
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Underage workers, desperation, and extortion oh my…
Children at the plant. The Jerusalem Post reported: “‘The position of the OU has been that the only thing they are interested in is how the animal is slaughtered and whether there are imperfections in the meat,’ [Avram] Lyon said. ‘Postville is a poster child of failure of that kind of approach to kashrut. It’s proof you can’t separate one part of Jewish law from other parts of Jewish law.’ The fact that there were 18 children picked up in the recent raid was reason enough to respond, he said.” Read the story. (hat tip, Failed Messiah)
Agriprocessors turns to hiring homeless people. The JTA reported: “In an effort to restore lagging production at its Iowa plant, the country’s largest kosher meat producer has been hiring workers from homeless shelters in Texas to replace employees detained in a massive federal immigration raid last month.” Crime rates in the beleaguered Midwestern town have risen as a result. Read the story.
Extortion at Agriprocessors. From The Iowa Independent: “A former supervisor at the Postville meatpacking plant raided by federal agents last month has fled the country, Iowa Independent has learned. The supervisor, Hasom Amara, sometimes required workers to buy illicitly registered cars as a condition of work, three former workers have told the Iowa Independent.” Read the story.
Last week, Adamah dropped off our first-ever Tuv Ha’Aretz share to Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York. It felt somewhat historic (bashert? destined?) to finally bring together the young Jewish farmers at Adamah with Hazon’s Jewish Community-Supported Agriculture program. One of the highlights of the day was driving down to the city in Adamah’s new truck, which runs on used vegetable oil and is emblazoned with the icon above and the beautiful words, “Young Jewish Farmers: Changing the World One Pickle at a Time.”
We’re looking for sources of used vegetable oil to power the truck! If you have connections to restaurants who could donate used grease in Westchester, Duchess or Putnam Counties, please be in touch! Check out more photos of the truck, below.
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Thanks to Tamara Mann for this guest post. Tamara lives in New York City and is a Ph.D candidate in American History.
I think I screamed. I opened the fridge, saw the gelatinous lard on the top shelf and screamed. Welcome to Durham, North Carolina, where five regionally distinct 19-year olds shared a disintegrating house with a large kitchen and a wraparound southern porch. Hailing from New York City, rural Georgia, a litany of military bases, New Jersey by way of India, and the Midwest, our motley crew looked like a trite “We Are Diverse” poster. And the smells emanating from the kitchen reflected the sentiment.
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Two of the most interesting stories that came out of Postville this week show two very different sides of the kosher meat industry, and particularly Agriprocessors.
Flood Relief. As you might have read (or experienced) there has been a LOT of rain and flooding in the Midwest over the last couple of weeks. According to Chabad.org Iowa’s Jewish community - including the Rubashkins - has been spared a lot of the most destructive flooding and is stepping in to help other Iowans. The company donated 1,000 pounds of meat to residents saying:
“Agriprocessors is proud to serve the greater good,” said Juda Engelmayer, a spokesman for the Postville, Iowa-based Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States. “The people need our help right now.”
I’m glad to hear that the Jewish community is pitching in to help their neighbors. Still, whether or not donating 1,000 pounds of meat makes up for Agriprocessors’ other “less honorable” business practices is up for debate. (hat tip to Arieh Lebowitz)
The OU Weighs In. In other news, Ben Harris over at the JTA wrote on The Telegraph that Rabbi Seth Mandell - the head Mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at the OU - has been spending time calming people down about the fate of Agriprocessors.
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Hazon’s friends Devora Kimelman-Block, founder of Kol Foods (a kosher, organic, grass-fed meat company) and Rabbi Morris Allen, Director of Hekhsher Tzedek, joined American University Radio to discuss the situation at Agriprocessors and explore the questions:
“If food meets the strict rules elaborated in religious texts, does it matter how food arrives at our plates? And where do workers’ rights and other ethical considerations factor into kosher food production?”
Listen here.
On the same page, you can also find a segment featuring Jennifer 8 Lee, author of the Fortune Cookie Chronicles which was reviewed on The Jew & The Carrot.
Here’s the latest news from Uri L’Tzedek, the modern Orthodox organization that circulated a letter in the days following the Agriprocessors raid calling for higher standards of justice and ethics from Agri (and by extension other kosher food producers). It’s a powerfully-written letter - definitely worth the read. Find the back story here.
Friends,
Yeshar kochechem.
Thanks to your efforts, over 1200 kosher consumers, rabbis, educators, and activists have no signed on the petition. Our collective call for justice has been heard by the synagogues, day schools, hillels, and summer camps that have stopped purchasing Rubashkins meat. It’s being in heard in the debates raging in Jewish listserves and blogs about immigration, workers’ rights, and kosher food. It’s being heard in the coverage of this movement in the Forward, The Nation, The JTA, The Jewish Week The Des Moines Register, and other national media outlets.
We are making our voices heard, and we are making change. But there is still critical work left to do.
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Rabbi Rebecca Joseph is a conservative rabbi, a cultural anthropologist, and a Tuv Ha’Aretz member! Her blog, The Parve Baker is filled with delicious recipes and (equally delicious) words of Torah. This is her second installment of “Unboxed” - posts that demystify summer’s most seasonal produce. See her first post on rhubarb.
There is something very special about the first pick-up of the Tuv HaAretz CSA season. Having invested in a farmer’s harvest-to-come in the cold dark of winter and then waited patiently through the spring, the initial sight of tables piled high with the first produce of the season is a delight in the midst of the densely built environment. No wonder our ancestors were enjoined to bring offerings of first fruits to the Temple in gratitude for the blessing of the earth’s bounty!
At Congregation Ansche Chesed in New York City last week, new and returning Tuv HaAretz members gathered shares of vegetables, fruit, flowers, and eggs from Eve and Chris Kaplan-Walbrecht’s Garden of Eve farm. Early summer greens prevailed. Red lettuce, mesclun, and arugula went into bags and boxes of all shapes and sizes along with elegant asparagus spears, bunches of red radishes, and a single stalk of rhubarb each. Then there were the leeks. Sturdy and humble in appearance, these gangly onion and garlic cousins fit awkwardly among the leafy beauties.
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