OT, this is way off topic, I think, except it takes place in the home. But I've googled till the cows come home and I don't know who else to ask. And image googled too.
There used to be on cartons of ice cream and maybe other stuff with a lot of milk in it, a little logo, about 1/4" high, a capital D in deep blue, filled with blue, except for a 5-pointed white star in the middle, filled with white.
I always thought it was a trade group like the Dairy Council, but they have a different logo, at least now, and I can find no record of this symbol, though maybe I don't know how to look.
And it's not on any ice cream anymore. or anything, afaict.
Does anyone remember it? Do you know what it stood for? Anything related to it.
That's a popular notion, but it's really about inspection, not blessing.
With a dairy food like ice-cream, an inspector goes to the plant and checks that there is no meat or meat derivatives in the ice-cream. Since afaik no one includes meat, probably all ice cream is kosher even before its inspected, but it also costs very little to get certified. The inspector might come only once a year.
Canned and frozen vegetables and fruits also require very little inspection. But if vegetarian baked beans are to be canned using the same equipment that they used for pork and beans, the inspector would insist that either the machinery be cleaned very well first, or they use a different canning line. This is not a problem in today's large canning factories. They may well use a different line anyway, or they can use the line they use for string beans and lima beans. And if a product is to be labeled pareve, neither meat nor milk, the inspector would compare the ingredient list with his own list and make sure none of the additives are milk or meat based. Plus he'd go out and look at the line to make sure it matches the ingredient list, but there is little or no cheating aiui. Much much more likely are accidental errors.
Meat products take a lot of inspection however, as well as rejection of animals whose lungs have adhesions (1), and so kosher meat is more expensive than non-kosher.
1) In most cases meat from such animals is still safe to eat and still passes DOA inspection, so the slaughtered cow is sold at a discount to a non-kosher meat company, usually one right next door. Also it is very difficult and time consuming to remove the sciatic nerve, which runs down the hind leg of cows (and people) and so the hind quarters of kosher cows are sold to that same non-kosher meat company.
On 9/14/2012 1:46 PM, snipped-for-privacy@att.net wrote: ...
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Well, it's _really_ about following the proscriptions/directives; inspection is simply to confirm that is so (or correct if not, of course)...
There's a kosher packing facility near here (along w/ many others; this is heart of cattle country; local facility process 3000 head/day+); I never heard of them passing off hindquarters but I'll see if I can check...
Yes. Important point. I was contrasting blessing with inspecting.
Maybe because it's so standard it's not worth talking about? 3000 head a day is a large number. If the sirloin steaks one would get from 3000 head were available in kosher meat markets, I would have heard about it. I would have seen them. But except for Israel, I don't know anywhere one can get a kosher sirloin.
Okay, I checked and it seems that kosher sirloin, rump roast, and leg of lamb do exist in the US, but he didn't say where. Probably too expensive for me anyhow.
I also learned some new stuff about selling the hindquarters. It is pretty old, starting 350 to 400 yeas ago. Partly because there has been for that long a shortage of butchers qualified to remove the sciatic and peroneal nerves (without hacking up the meat), and partly because ithas been so easy to do where Jews lived among Moslems or Christians.
Iin cases where the demand for kosher meat is not great, part of someone else's slaugtherhouse will be rented for a day, or a few days a month, and I think all that has to be done is to put the hindquarters in the other company's refrigerator. In other cases where they run 35 hours a week, the hindq's might be sent by refrigerator truck.
Well, in theory it wouldn't have to be. To be "ordained".rabbis have to know something about a lot of topics ,kosher laws, Sabbath laws, marriage, divorce, contracts, medical issues, death issues, family issues, and other things. but the inspector only has to know about kosher.
But in practice, when a rabbinical student has his books open, he's going to read more than the minimum requried and might learn what an inspector (mashgiach) needs to know. Also, all Jews are supposed to learn something about all those topics I list above, and a lot more Orthodox men go on to become rabbis than there are full-time jobs that require the training a rabbi has. Most Orthodox rabbis are not congregational rabbis. My own rabbi made his living as a computer programmer, and when I moved, the rabbi at my shul made his living as an accountant, and got paid a small salary for administrating the business of the congregation, inscluding maintaining the building etc. Rabbis who want to work at least part time in the Jewish world are going to seek jobs as inspectors, etc. So in practice, all the inspectors who work with meat are probably rabbis. And maybe all the ones who go to processed food production plants of any knid.
I did meet one woman who was an iinspector for a major kosher inspection organaizatio for large catered dinners. Al she had to do was make sure that all the food served was kosher, and if it was a meat meal nothing contained milk, and vice versa.
Most kosher inspection is done by the person who runs the family kitchen, usually the wfe/mother of the family.
Glad you added that :-)
Muslims have their own method of slaughter also, but they don't seem to be so strict about it, or at least some aren't. They have a holiday once a year where each male head of household is supposed to slaughter his own goat or lamb. Usually the local tv news announces these things ater they have happened, but one year they reminded me the night before, so the next day I went. I didn't know what time and I got there an hour before anyone else, and spent the time cleaing out my trunk. There must be many times more Muslim families in the area than came that day.
I had planned to watch the slaughter, but even before anyone arrived, I walked into the little building and in the first room was a skinned goat (I think) hanging from a hook, and I was so grossed out I stayed outside.
Still I got to look at the goats in their pen and the lambs in theirs and to talk to some of the men. I wasn't dressed as a Jew but I told them I was a Jew and I didn't notice any bad reactions.
I don't "know nuthink'" really about kosher except the word and the barest of the rules. I was "underneath the impression" (as an old working buddy who was a walking malaprop factory used to say :) ) that there were levels of strictness in conformance as there are the various groups overall from the ultra-orthodox to whatever the other end is...
The facility is in Dodge which is about 80 mi away; it doesn't process nearly that many altho I'm not sure what their kosher production numbers were. Now that I'm thinking about it again, though, they had a fire several years ago and I'm not sure they reopened that line. The main plant is twice the size of the one here, however, roughly, and there's a second of roughly the same size as here also in Dodge. So, within a 100 mi radius nearly 20,000 head a day (altho to be clear, all that is conventional). It's delivered all over the US, to Mexico and Canada and a great fraction of specialty products from here go to Japan and S Korea.
I'll have to do some more checking on the kosher facility altho a quick web search didn't find anything on it that is current/since the fire. I suppose the effort/expense to get it rebuilt to proper standards wasn't worth it.
No blessing is involved in kashrut (kosher) certification and Jews don't bless "things," such as food or shrimp boats. A rabbi is fundamentally a legal scholar or judge and teacher, not a pastor; he does not stand in as God's representative on earth as does a Catholic priest.
In order for a food manufacturer to gain certification from one of several Jewish agencies, his equipment, methods, and ingredients must meet certain standards. These standards are purely mechanical and straightforward.
Usually inspectors are rabbis, but there is no regulation specifying that they must be.
For muslims, their food must be "halal" or "fit," much like kosher. Since the Jewish requirements are more strict, a Mohammaden may eat kosher food without violating his dietary laws.
You are correct. There's kosher meat and there's "glat" meat. The latter, demanded by the ultra-orthodox, comes from animals that are inspected more rigorously than done for mere kosher. For example, in "glat-kosher," the lungs of the slaughtered animal are inspected for the absence spots or other irregularities.
And you're right: there is a spectrum of practice in Judaism. The "Reform" Jews are often likened to Unitarians and the ultra-orthodox are similar to Trappist monks! Where this comparison to Christianity breaks down is this: neither the Reform Jew nor the Hassidic Jew has any problem accepting the other is Jewish.
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