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Why I Eat the Other White Meat
by Emily Comisar
A brief summary of my religious history: I was born a Jew. My father has been Jewish all his life and my mother converted from Lutheranism in her mid-twenties (that I was not aware of this until my mid-teens is beside the fact).
Growing up, I always liked being Jewish because it made me different, especially living in certain school districts where members of the Tribe were few and far between. But when I went to private school in Dallas, I discovered that I was no longer any different than 30% of my eighth grade class. It became obvious to my thirteen-year-old brain that I either needed to find a more tangible link to Judaism or I would have to be Agnostic. This is why dissecting fetal pigs in biology class seemed as good an excuse as any to give up pork products and call myself “kosher-style.” College in Chicago, of course, offered me the opportunity to interact with a whole community of Jews my age in a much more significant way, and as I matured a little, my steadfast eating habits took on a different, more spiritual meaning.
This story, however, does not tie up so neatly. Moving to Florence, Italy in 2007 put me face to face with a cold, hard truth: virtually every Italian restaurant and market seems to specialize in some sort of pork product. They eat it crude and cooked, sliced and ground, rolled into sausages, on pizzas, and in pastas. It might as well be on the flag. Keeping my anti-pork regimen was not terribly difficult, as long as I was satisfied eating vegetarian, which for the most part I was. So to be clear, when I started re-thinking my gastrono mic choices that were already ten years in the making, it was not solely to do with the plethora of offerings on every street corner and in every supermarket.
I don’t believe in crises of faith. I figure that if you believe in something, you should believe in it enough that random acts of life don’t completely blow it all away. That being said, I do believe in spiritual evolution. The more time that I spent away from my Jewish safe haven in Chicago, the more I evolved – not necessarily for better or worse, but just in a different direction.
Eventually I realized that I didn’t really know why I refused to eat pork. The presence or absence of it in my life didn’t seem to have an effect on the rest of my religious beliefs and, given that I didn’t really keep kosher aside from this particular item, it just no longer made sense.
That’s how I decided to try the other white meat. It started with a little bit of pancetta in a spaghetti alla carbonara, a little bit of sausage in a calzone. I don’t know if, after ten years of abstention, I’ll ever bring myself to eat a sandwich sliced freshly off the roasted animal, but with small steps I tried new things and even got a little closer to my host culture. I’ve always thought that there was nothing more revealing about a people than their food.
Photo by Justin Belcher, licensed under Creative Commons.
Tags: food, Kosher, Pork, Why I Eat What I Eat
7 Responses to “Why I Eat the Other White Meat”
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I have been known to dabble in the occasional bacon slice, but only when someone else orders it. And once, at a New Year party, I partook of well-roasted ham. I should also mention that in summer camp after 10th grade, a close friend of mine didn’t know that ham, pork, and bacon all came from the same animal. Now that’s sad.
It’s very hard to keep kosher while abroad! I was in China in 2006, and in a lot of the villages I went to, they put pork in everything! I spent weeks eating only soy sauce, rice, and bok choy. But a lot of these Chinese people had never met someone who kept kosher before, so it was really cool to explain what it means and what it’s like!
Food is one of those things that people have irrational habits about. My sister LOVES bowls of cereal, but she cannot drink a glass of milk by itself. My mom has an insatiable sweet-tooth and loves pancakes, but she HATES syrup. (Who hates syrup???) I feel like pork has become the poster-child for non-kosher food. Pork is just as not kosher as shellfish, as meat and cheese lasagne, or as ostrich for that matter. But Jews–even not so observant ones–have this weird thing about pork. PORK IS EVIL. “I eat shrimp, sure, but pork??? No way.” I’m guilty of it too, I’ll admit. Something about the name even–PORK. I dunno, I like to think of kashrut (keeping kosher) as reality check in this world of 24-hour drive-through supermarkets and whatnot. I like to think about what I put into my body, and having clearly defined borders of what I can and cannot eat helps me keep that in check. Without it, I would just eat like a pig…
Teddy, didn’t you partake of the “special burger” at Father’s Office? Or is that just my imagination? And that’s the nonsense about them not having ketchup. Still not over that.
When I was growing up my dad would frequently make pork-chops. I didn’t like pork chops… so I would use the excuse that pork was a no-no so I could avoid eating the chops.
But then, I discovered ribs, and bacon… and the jig was, as they say, up.
PS. I also like cheeseburgers.
I noticed the prevalence of pork in Italy too while studying in Rome…didn’t make much difference to me as I’ve never really avoided it. But Italy does have quite a few Jews and there are vibrant communities in several cities, and if you did want to keep kosher, it wouldn’t be so hard. I was lucky enough to live next to the old Jewish ghetto in Rome, which is still home to many Jews and has several kosher restaurants, butchers, bakeries, even a kosher “fast food” joint. The Italian Jews have a unique and very delicious style of cuisine as well, definitely worth a try even if you don’t keep kosher (although you’ll probably want to avoid the kosher wine if you don’t have to drink it).
Good piece, and agree it is hard to enjoy all the epicurian delights of Italy without eating pork…my real temptation is more state-side: BLT’s.