Excerpt from a Conversation

[gnomi]

From this morning's call to the parental units:

Ima: Hmm. I can't find my small milchig pot.

Me: ::giggles::

Ima: What?

Me: Do you need separate prescriptions for that?

Ima: Huh?

Me: The milchig pot? I mean, do you get a separate scrip for milchig, fleishig, and pareve? Can you smoke milchig pot after a fleishig meal?

Ima: ::laughs, then retells conversation to Abba::

Comments

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

It's times like these that I regret having grown up in a small, very non-Jewish town on the West Coast.

I don't get it, and I feel dumb for asking, as it was obviously humorous, and I hate being the one to have to have the joke explained.

But if you explain now, then maybe I'll get it in the future.

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

Milchig = Milk based or containing milk...
Fleishig = Ditto with meat
Pareve = containing neither milk nor meat and can be served with either

And since you cook/serve in different containers/utensils, you were joking about having post-dinner drugs that were only compatable with certain dishes, etc...

Yes?

Gods, I feel dumb.

Wouldn't all pot be pretty much pareve, and thus good with either type of meal?

Am I over thinking this? Or undereducated on kosher stuff (Which is obvious)... or maybe just don't know about milk/meat pot... Would that be like jerky, but smell like burned sage when you smoked it?

I think I need more coffee.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is basically it.

All pot is, in fact, pareve.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Sorry 'bout that. Here's the quick and dirty explanation:

Your average Kosher-keeping household has three sets of everyday-use dishes: milchig (dairy), fleishig (meat), and pareve (neutral -- used for things that contain neither meat nor milk and can be used with either).

My mother was looking for her small dairy pot, presumably for the making of breakfast or somesuch. I, being generally odd and currently pre-caffeine, heard "dairy pot" and started thinking "dairy marijuana." Since we wait some amount of time (the two main traditions among Jews from Eastern Europe are three hours and six hours, depending on where your family originates from) between eating meat and next eating dairy, I began to wonder if the same would apply were such a thing as dairy marijuana to exist.

I hope that makes it make a bit more sense. My parents and I have very, very odd conversations on a regular basis, full of cultural references and bilingual puns. Never feel like you can't ask for explanations; most of this is obscure stuff.

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

I like it, though. Thanks for explaining.

My sister was a nanny in a kosher home in Pennsylvania when she was just out of high school. It was my first exposure to the plethora of traditions and practices of the culture, and I'm fascinated. I just don't know much. :)

Thank you! :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'm always happy to explain. I mean, there's stuff that I know instinctively because I've always kept kosher, but I understand that this is all very confusing to people who don't live it.

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

You are very silly. :D

It took me a bit, but I figured it out.

I actually really enjoy reading these things, because I get to learn all kinds of things I'd never have occasion to wonder about otherwise, and I think I'd be the poorer for missing out.

Thanks!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hee! Silly, I'll definitely cop to. But I blame genetics. :-)

And I'm very glad to hear that you enjoy these. I often worry that my silly Jewish posts are too obscure for the majority of folks reading and that maybe 10 people on my friends list (not including those related to me by blood or marriage) will understand the humor.

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

Nah, it makes me look things up, or ask questions. Nothing wrong with that. :)

[epj.livejournal.com]

I didn't understand the words right off (though I knew I'd seen "pareve" before), but I got the sense of it and found it pretty funny. Also, I learned something; my godmother (who was raised an Orthodox Jew) used to tell me about growing up with *two* sets of dishes; I didn't realize people might have *three*. Is three a requirement, or could you theoretically use the meat-only or milk-only dishes with neutral foods? (It's kind of like blood typing, isn't it? Okay, now I'm the silly one...)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

You can use meat or dairy pots for pareve foods, but then they have a slightly different status and are no longer completely neutral. Pareve food (such as rice) cooked in a dairy pot has the status of "dairy equipment," meaning that it is still mostly neutral and can be served with or after a meat meal but cannot be eaten in the same mouthful with the meat. Thus, most people don't serve dairy equipment food on the same plate with meat so as to not accidentally cause someone to mix meat and milk.

We have a principle of "putting a fence around the Torah," meaning that we'll be more stringent with specific details so as to not accidentally do something that is forbidden or cause someone else to do something forbidden.

[epj.livejournal.com]

We have a principle of "putting a fence around the Torah," meaning that we'll be more stringent with specific details so as to not accidentally do something that is forbidden or cause someone else to do something forbidden.

Well, that makes sense. Thanks!

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

but cannot be eaten in the same mouthful with the meat.

and this is why i am very glad i'm not kosher (forgetting for the moment that i'm not even jewish):

i loves me my cheesburgers too damn much! with all due respect to your spiritual practice, i mourn for your "loss." :(

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Actually cheeseburgers are out-and-out mixing meat and milk. So they're out no matter what.

And since I grew up keeping kosher, I have no real experience with cheeseburgers and thus have nothing to miss, y'know?

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

oh i completely understand on all counts.

and i'm glad you at least don't "know" what you're missing. there's plenty of other yummy things out there for you to enjoy. :D

it's just one of my favorite "comfort" foods, is all. i like sharing things that give me joy. so i pout a bit.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

boy, have i come a long way from my kentucky southern baptist white trash background: i didn't even have to think about it when i read the post. actually, as soon as i read the phrase "milchig pot," i thought the same thing. which probably says something kind of disturbing about both of us.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

You are very silly.

And it is obviously genetic. :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Heee!

I said almost that exact thing to xochitl42 right above. :-)

Oh! Your post this morning (especially the bit about GTA) made me think that you and lucretia_borgia would like each other.

(remember when, a while back, we were talking about introducing folks from one's friends list, and I said I did that periodically? Here I am, doing it again. :-))

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Cool. I shall check her out. One can never know too many borgias, at least until one meets exactly one too many...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Heh. Alas, much of her recent stuff is locked, but I think earlier stuff is open.

She's the friend I ask about poisons. As in, I want to poison someone, what would I use in X situation.

It's always helpful to have someone who can tell you stuff like that, no? :-)

[half-double.livejournal.com]

As in, I want to poison someone, what would I use in X situation.
Which begs the question: is poison pareve?

Also, as previously noted, your family rules. Also also, if pot is pareve, then "special" brownies are happy good kosherness, and I know what your Chanukah gift is going to be!

Kidding! Totally kidding! If I made special brownies, they wouldn't make it out my door.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I believe most poisons are pareve, should kosher laws apply (which I'm not convinced they do).

And your special brownies are self propelled? Neato-keen. Those really are some special brownies there.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

*gigglesnort*

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

::grins::