Lecture 4: Ancient Judea—From Eden to Kosher Laws
Mount Sinai and is given the law. This is a whole new epoch in
dietary history and, in fact, a new relationship between God and
the Israelites.Food Prohibitions and Practices
According to God, Hebrews can eat anything with a cloven hoof
and that chews its cud—which means ruminants like goats, sheep,
and cows—but not animals that have only one or the other, like the
camel that chews its cud but has toes, nor the pig that has cloven
hooves but doesn’t chew its cud. There has been more debate over this question than probably any
other food taboo in history. It was once suggested that the Hebrews
avoided pork because they somehow knew about trichinosis,
so they forbid pigs, which are fi lthy anyway. In fact, they knew
nothing about trichinosis, which is killed by cooking, and other
animals carry other diseases, such as salmonella or anthrax. Other historians have suggested that the Hebrews made the
prohibition so that they could be kept separate from their neighbors,
who ate pigs. However, many of the other Semitic people living
around the Hebrews also avoided pork. Jean Soler explains food prohibitions as a problem of
categorization. Soler argues that it’s still a matter of murder: The
only animals allowed to be eaten are vegetarians—ones whose sins
don’t have to be expiated. Carnivores and omnivores, who will
commit murder, are ritually unclean, so they can’t be eaten. A few
animals got prohibited by mistake, such as hares, or because priests
determined that they were unclean, such as snails, shellfi sh, and fi sh
without scales. The prohibition of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk is a culinary
form of putting together two things that don’t belong together—a
kind of culinary adultery. Among people who keep kosher, it has
come to be interpreted as meaning that you can never mix any milk
and meat products in the same meal.