[Sca-cooks] Mrs Levy again

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Heleen Greenwald:
>I was sitting at lunch today (Rosh HaShana luncheon) and discussing the fish
>& meat question. My orthodox friends said, yes you can have meat and fish
>together.... this was not what I was taught nor what was done in my neck of
>the woods, growing up.... so here you have another opinion!
>Will ask more Jews  :-)
>Phillipa

I was a little curious about that, myself. You'll note that there's a
_relative_ scarcity in Medieval European cookery of dishes that mix
fish and meat, but the rationale in the Middle Ages, with Lent,
Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays taking up a really large chunk of
the year, seems to have been, "There are so many days when we
essentially _have to_ eat fish, why on earth would we on the days
when we don't?" (Note that the aformentioned days are meatless,
depending on specific time, place, and interpretation, but not
necessarily "fish" or even fast days.)

It may be similar for Jews: you can have meat and fish together
(according to some) but overall, some might ask (and more's the pity
if they do), "Why would you want to?"

So why do so many people make gefilte fish for Passover using matzoh?
The implication seems to be that they're making the dish more or less
Parve by using matzoh (although I've also seen recipes that call for
challah or other leavened bread). Are there fish/dairy Seders? I've
never heard of one... but I suppose it's no worse than a vegan Seder,
although for me it brings up unpleasant images of the Sacrifice of
Cain. (Heretic me always thought Cain got a bum rap just 'cause G-d
likes his meat better than veggies.)

Phillipa, I spoke to a friend who is a Reform Jew, and her
explanation of the rationale against using salt pork medicinally is
that even touching it makes one ritually unclean, at least in theory.
I can't vouch for the veracity of the claim, I can only report that
that was what I was told. This from a lady happy to report that she
is now too old to have to fast for Yom Kippur... ;-)

Adamantius

--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER