JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
What is baconnaise? I first began hearing the name bandied around when I began research on bacon substitutes. I heard whispers of it in restaurant bathrooms and in anonymous comment forums dedicated to the goings on of the kosher world. I had to know more about this mysterious substance, this bacon-flavored yet bacon-less mayonnaise, this…
Jews and bacon: Has there ever been a more complicated relationship? We lust after bacon, we denounce it, we rebelliously consume it, we declare it permanently verboten, we create facon, we declare that inedible, scientists invent cloned bacon, now we have thoughts about it. Suffice it to say that the Jewish culinary palate, thanks to…
A Jewish woman has filed a lawsuit against a Detroit-area Denny’s restaurant for serving her bacon. Angela Montgomery, 30, of Sterling Heights, Michigan, said she found bacon in the “loaded veggie” omelet served to her last month at her neighborhood Denny’s. The lawsuit says Montgomery “is a practicing Jew whose religion forbids the eating of…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Kosher kosher kosher! That refrain lingered in my ears loudly, even years after I left the tight-knit Hasidic community I grew up in. The necessity of keeping kosher was instilled in me in the most powerful way from a very young age. It wasn’t enough if the…
Almost everyone knows that bacon is forbidden under kosher laws, but a rogue group of rabbinic scholars is challenging this assumption, according to a recent article in Haaretz. Dr. Robert Gnuse, a professor in the Religious Studies Department at Loyola University, argues that the kosher and clothing rules found in the Book of Leviticus (where…
This is the third in a series of pseudonymous essays by The Treyfster. The pieces explore forbidden foods from the point of view of a person who used to keep traditionally kosher. Illustration by Kurt Hoffman If you’re talking treyf, it doesn’t get much trey-fer than bacon. That’s not true, of course. The idea that…
Thinkstock What’s better than winning $1,000? Winning $1,000 while smelling bacon. At least, that’s what New Hampshire wants you to think. According to The New York Post, the state lottery has launched a special “scratch and sniff ‘I Heart Bacon’ ticket” this month. Players “will think it’s time for Saturday morning breakfast,” Lottery Commission Executive…
(JTA) — Ritz has a new bacon-flavored cracker hitting shelves. But unlike most things bacon-related, this Nabisco product bears a kosher symbol. “There was much discussion over the decision about this product,” said Rabbi Moshe Elefant, COO of the Orthodox Union Kashrut Department. The box for the new Ritz cracker has the signature O.U.-Dairy certification…
