How to make kosher steam

1 servings

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How to Make Kosher Steam
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Directions

Kosher steam? Well, in a manner of speaking, that is what some Israeli engineers have achieved. One of them, Dov Zioni (hmmmm?) He works at the Institute for Science and Halakhah, in Jerusalem. The institute's purpose is to adapt contemporary technology to the prescriptive and proscriptive laws of the Halakhah, the system of religious law.

Whatever steam there was in those ancient times was a waste by-product of boiling water. But today's steam is purposely made to - among other things that will not concern us here - keep food hot after cooking and before serving in the hospital, restaurants and other places. Problem: if kosher foods on the same steam table as include both fleishig (meat) and milchig (dairy), the steam passing over them impairs the KASHRUTH (kosherness) of both by contact. So - how do the Halakhah and engineering ingenuity combine to make steam PARVE - that is neither meat nor dairy? Quite simply: According to the Halakah, only something that is food can contaminate food. - that is make it TREF (unkosher). And how does one determine what is and what is not food? It is not food, says a maxim in the Halakhah, if dogs won't eat it. Dov Zioni now has something to work with. By a process of experimentation, he found that pine oil is offensive to the canine palate. Since the dog won't eat it , it isn't food. But what does all that have to do with steam? Steam, condensed, is water.

Dogs drink water. Ah, but when water is to which pine oil has been added is used to make steam and is then condensed, it is spurned even by thirsty dogs. Therefore, such steam is not food. Thus kosher steam. From : The Jewish Almanac By: David C. Gross Submitted By SAM LEFKOWITZ On 03-29-95

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