33 thoughts on “A Pressing Theological Question”

  2. Well, now I have to confess that I’m intrigued. What do you do with pork chops? Is there some Satanic ritual involved? And if so, is that still not “consumption”? Does it matter whether they are bone-in or not?

  6. What do you do with pork chops?

    I’m not big on pork and not too keen on meat on the bone, so I tend to just plot pork chops. But I was wondering whether preparation of non-kosher food is forbidden or just consumption. It’s like one of those libertarian Gedanken experiments: should it be illegal to drive while under the influence or should it just be illegal to cause bodily harm, regardless of the cause, assuming it is under the driver’s control?

  7. It’s not the salt that’s kosher per se, it’s the salt which is used *for* koshering, so it’s all kosher.

  8. Not being Jewish myself I would regard it as neither perverse nor immoral.

    Applying mayonnaise to the pork chops, however, would be not only perverse and immoral, but just plain wrong.

    And only half a step removed from what people here in my neck of the woods do with mayonnaise on a regular basis. And that’s just on food.

  10. Is it perverse, and even immoral, to brine pork chops with kosher salt?
    Depends. Do they taste better salted or not?

    Since I am Catholic it is theologically ok for me to eat it. We are not even in the fasting period prior to Easter. That was if I actually fasted to begin with.

  12. Paper covers rock,
    Kosher salt covers pork chops – so to speak.

    I’d say you’re OK.

  13. Bacon Salt. How something with that name can be both vegetarian and kosher is wild, but the name itself is a pretty solid endorsement.

  14. Is it perverse, and even immoral, to brine pork chops with kosher salt?

    With the exception of bacon salt, all salt is “kosher”, in the sense that it follows the rules written down in the Torah. What’s called “kosher salt” in the USA is more accurately called elsewhere “koshering salt”, because the shape and size of the salt crystals draws the blood from the meat.

    Not that this answers your question. What this really leads us to is: Is brining a port chop with any kind of salt other than bacon salt perverse or immoral.

    Quite possibly.

    Do pigs have foreskins?

    I dare you to find out.

  15. When t comes to foreskin, it depend on what yo believe is right for your only son. To be like you, cut, or to be as nature created him, un-cut.

    I went with un-cut. Because it was more important to not cut off the skin of his penis without anesthesia, than it was to replicate what happened to me when I was newborn.

  16. A priest buys a cadillac. The Rabbi across the street buys a lincoln. So the priest goes and sprinkles holy water on his new car. Not to be outdone, the Rabbi uses a hacksaw to cut three inches off the tailpipe.

  21. If it ain’t Hellman’s…

    …it doesn’t go on my sandwiches.

    Unfortunately, the pork industry is pretty immoral itself, so buying into it by buying the meat is not so good. That said, I like my sausage and bacon as much as the next fella.

  22. dantealiegr and Brock have the right take on this. It’s a designation of crystal structure that makes it KOSHER SALT here, and usage that makes the item ‘kosher’.

    And, I brine ALL fresh pork cuts of meat, regardless of how they’ll be cooked. I also brine my turkeys before I fry them. (keeps them moist and flavors the meat) I use only kosher salt in my kitchen, except for making ice cream. (rock salt…in the sink…too hot here in the summer to run in and out, just for ice cream, that’s why)

    And finally, no amount of salt can ‘clean’ pork enough to make it kosher.

    (OMG, I’m so hungry right now, I wonder how fried turkey stuffed with fried pork chops would be)(besides dense)

  23. Yeah, the name should be “koshering salt”. It’s like “French fries” used to be “frenched fries”, because of the technique used to prepare them. (… plus they ought to be Belgian fries, as they are a traditional food there. And served with mayo! Hot, properly cooked fries with home made mayo are tasty.)

    BTW, you don’t need to brine your pork if you can find a store that sells old-style pork that acutally has fat in it. Fortunately, I have a market near home that sells it.

  24. Kosher laws only apply to Jews who practice it.

    Kosher salt is a salt that is particularly good for salting meat, a process used in making meat kosher but it has many other uses. There is no reason why it cannot and should not be used for salting other meat. I like salting potato chips with kosher salt.

  25. Nope. It’s delicious, though, I bet.

    MPM: I believe Torah proscribes only the eating of non-kosher food (and naturally only for Jews; the prohibition in the Noahide law related to food is the flesh of still living animals).

    However, the traditional “wall around Torah” of Rabbinical tradition, I believe, extends to its production as well, simply to prevent accidental consumption.

    If you don’t make (or directly handle) any non-kosher food, you can’t eat any of it in error or contaminate otherwise kosher food with it, and thus you can’t accidentally break the Law.

    (Thanks, internet, for letting me learn all of that over the years.

    It just occurred to me how historically novel it is for a non-Jew to idly have that level of knowledge of Jewish tradition.

    We live in awesome times.)

  26. I have a question regarding which the gang here might have some insight. Why does Glenn Reynolds have such a fetish about bacon? Is there some sly Islamophobia at work here?

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