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Men are from meat

by Sarah Rose · February 8th, 2007
Kosher, Personal Story

The Boy and I speak in the subjunctive.

Me: In our fictional future home, I’ll frum up and keep a kosher kitchen, you’ll frum down and agree to ‘ingredient kosher’ as opposed to ‘certified kosher.’

Boy: I couldn’t have a home where my family can’t eat. Someday we’ll have a third set of dishes, a trayf set, just for you. Although, I don’t know what the theoretical kids would potentially think…

Picturing a life where my hypothetical children laugh at me eating artisinal cheese and exotic vinegar, alone in the corner, on my second class dishes, I burst into tears.

Boy: What just happened? Why are you crying?


He thought trayf dishes revealed an open mind and willingness to compromise.

We quickly shelved the kosher conversation.

Recently, we had a revelation during brunch. In a beautiful UWS apartment, visiting friends with a gorgeous baby and newly remodeled kitchen, we ate on paper plates.

Boy: He’s Sephardi, he doesn’t own dairy dishes.

Me: He’s a BOY, he doesn’t own dairy dishes.

In New York, where kitchen space is at a premium, people have to choose sides. My Boy has no milchig kitchenware, save for two cereal bowls, into which he pours soy milk — old habits die hard. My girlfriends almost universally keep dairy kitchens. By default, so do I, though not out of religious conviction. Meat is expensive. I can get lowfat protein from dairy. Parve foods are lower on the food chain and healthier, for me and for the planet.

Girls are milchig, boys are fleishig.

With this reductive realization in hand, we saw the answer: our fictional future fleishig dishes would be hechsher-only kosher, the milchig side could be ingredient kosher. And never the twain shall meet. His family can come to Shabbos dinner, I can have truffle oil and stinky cheese.

We felt like total geniuses. A conversation about our future came off the shelf.

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3 Responses to “Men are from meat”

  1. Phyllis Bieri Says:
    February 8th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    “I couldn’t have a home where my family can’t eat,” said Sarah’s subjunctive Boy. Meaning, paper and plastic, or double-wrapped aluminum foil would not work. That is how I feel when I’m trying to host a kosher event in my home. I’ve tried to get used to the all-disposable environmental insult, and avoiding my heirloom serving pieces. But it sometimes feels like I’m an imposter in my own home.

    I’ve often thought it would be much easier to keep kosher, especially in our upper west side, immersed in Jewish day school life. But I could only go as far as the “ingredient kosher” kitchen, and would that be enough? As it is, I never cook meat on Friday nights, in deference to the majority of our guests.

    I was relieved to see Sarah find a solution by the end of her story. Maybe my kids will help me find a solution to my kashrut issues, if and when they decide kashrut has personal relevance for them. With my luck, we’ll end up with 10 sets of dishes.

  2. Another Boy Says:
    February 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    Not all boys are fleishig.
    Some quite like cheese.
    So long as it’s not _too_ ripe…
    … though a cheese can age nicely, in certain circumstances, for quite a while.

    Which reminds me:

    “Do you know why Jewish girls wear bikinis…?”

    “… to separate the milk from the meat (!)”

    [I don’t make this up; I’m just reporting it…]

    Another Boy xx

  3. Another Boy Says:
    February 11th, 2007 at 5:52 pm

    And speaking of the subjunctive: here’s Mr Safire, in today’s NYT Magazine. His piece helpfully asks us to note, when a subjunctive is being used, that the usage has three quite different potential implications…

    Placing myself in the shoes of the Republicans who had been the original switchers, I posed the question they must have asked: “If Labor was to be replaced, then with what?”

    “I am not insensible to the declining use of the subjunctive mood,” writes George Brucks of Des Moines, “but I thought that standard usage still required it.” He was joined by Gertrude Cohen of Westfield, N.J.: “Wouldn’t it be correct to say, ‘If Labor were to be replaced,’ since this is clearly in the subjunctive mood? Or is this no longer the practice?”

    To prevent the onset of a bad mood, we should use the subjunctive

    - when expressing a wish,
    - making a suggestion or
    - describing a circumstance that we know just ain’t so.

    Which makes one wonder: which subjunctive is this one…?
    And as Dan Bern might ask: which one is it; how can you know…?

    AB x

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