SC - Re: kosher/halaal animals, paraffin/kerosene

[Ian van Tets]

Greetings fair gentles,
        Alas my knowledge of Jewish and Islamic food laws is rather 
scanty (even though it seems that every second butcher in Cape town 
is either halaal or kosher).  However, I have some knowledge of the 
chewing habits of the beasts of the field.  Of those queried in the 
last digest:
	goats do chew the cud (just like sheep & cows) and have cloven 
hoofs (hooves?),
	rabbits do not, although their charming habit of reingesting 
caecal pellets to get the most out of their munch, might have 
distressed the odd rabbi.  (incidentally, Cairistiona - my lady wife 
- - does a delicious roast rabbit - strips of bacon over the top and
stuffed with butter and mushrooms - that is probably as 
unkosher as you can get.)
	Moles are (as someone pointed out) not herbivorous.  However, voles 
(or at least those vole species I am familiar with) are.  Does anyone 
actually eat voles though?
	I would be interested to know if kangaroo is kosher.  Kangaroo has a 
 delicious venison like meat but I am willing to bet that it was
overlooked when the laws were written.  It does not have cloven feet 
but it does chew the cud (or rather, kangaroos rechew a proportion 
of their food intake in a manner analagous to cud chewing).  The 
question is simply idle curiosity.  I am unaware of any SCA period 
recipes for macropods.
	On Ras (& others) comments on paraffin/kerosene, in Australia (or at 
least the bits Cairistiona and I lived in), we used the word kerosene 
for kerosene (or the more colloquial "kero" as in "a kero lamp") and 
paraffin for the waxy substance Ras mentions (or its liquid form).  
	In South African English, kerosene = paraffin and "paraffin" stoves 
are the major cause of the frequent house fires in the poor 
townships.   However, paraffin is also called paraffin (we 
use the incredibly sticky liquid form in our lab.), which leads to a 
certain amount of confusion (but not much as very few people actually 
use "real" paraffin).	I have no idea how US or UK English speakers 
use the terms.   From past experience with other terms, I suspect 
that it varies from region to region and between social classes in 
both countries.
I remain, yours etc.
Jan van Seist
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