Kosher Food — Made in China
Woody Allen once said, “My view of reality is that it has always been a grim place to be … but it’s the only place you can get Chinese food.”
In this week’s New Yorker, writer Patricia Marx tags along with rabbis/kashrut supervisors working in China — the fastest-growing exporter of kosher goods on earth. The rabbis in Marx’s story don’t care much for Chinese food (and one of them has never even heard of Woody Allen), but they do offer a theory on the affinity that Western Jews have for Eastern dishes: “Are there any foods that Jews don’t like?”
To the backdrop of China’s thriving kosher food industry, books such as “The Jewish People’s Bible for Business and Managing the World” — yes, managing the world — and “The Jewish Way of Raising Children” were Chinese-language bestsellers last year, Marx writes.
