Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Kosher Teen On ‘Master Chef’ Declines To Taste Own Cooking

JTA — A 13-year-old Jewish girl who cooked pork during a primetime reality show on Mexican TV said “my grandfather is going to kill me.”

Batia Bresca was clearly uncomfortable cooking non-kosher food during the premiere of the Mexican edition of “MasterChef Junior 2017” last week and invoked Jewish law when a referee asked why she did not eat pork, the Diario Judio news website reported Saturday. But her dish received good reviews and she advanced to the next phase of the show.

“I’m going to have to try it and my grandfather is going to kill me. That’s the end for me,” Batia said on the show.

The Mexico City teen is one of 18 contenders on the 13-week reality show. Bhatia has been learning to cook with her grandmother since she was 4. Oriental dishes are her favorite to prepare.

She may be expecting further wrath going forward: Batia will be expected to cook seafood and other foods prohibited by Jewish law.

Batia has traveled to Israel, the United States and across Europe, according to Azteca TV.

Mexico is home to some 50,000 Jews, Latin America’s third largest Jewish community after Argentina and Brazil.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version