SC - OOP/OT tangent on recent Roumanian Steak thread: Kosher?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list!

So here I am, preparing to annoy my neighbors this weekend, or those who
keep their windows open in the winter, anyway, by cooking Roumanian
steak over charcoal. It's a long story; suffice it to say there will be
a gathering of dedicated Roumanian steak fans at our place and that this
has been in the planning stages for a long time.

Just now, Phillipa asked about pigs' tails, and I mentioned ox and veal
tails, and it occurred to me to wonder if these cuts were Kosher (not
the pork, the others). This is not my baileywick, but I vaguely remember
something about Kosher beef being taken generally from the forequarters
of the animal, but that under certain circumstances Jews can enjoy the
short loin and other hind quarter cuts _provided_ that the sciatic nerve
has been removed with sufficient care. I gather also, though, that this
is a lot of trouble and that this is why common cuts of Kosher beef are
more in the chuck family.

I remembered that we had been discussing possible reasons why skirt
steak might be known colloquially as Roumanian tenderloin, and it seems
evident that unless the sciatic nerve has been removed carefully, the
short loin, including the tenderloin, would be treif. This could
conceivably be another reason (and far from the worst or most senseless)
for referring to skirt as "Roumanian tenderloin", Romanians being, to
some extent, assumed to be Jews, once upon a time in places like the
Lower East side of Manhattan. Skirt is, after all, shaped vaguely like
tenderloin (well, okay, not very like, but at least long and somewhat
skinny like a tenderloin), except it comes from the forequarter of the
steer. Could this be the origin of the phrase, "Roumanian tenderloin"?

_COULD_ humans have invented the Roumanian steak without... ALIEN...
intervention??? Dah dah dummmm.....

Anybody have any comments on the sense of this, or the lack thereof?

Adamantius 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com