Holy crap, the kashrut issues about gelatin are complicated. . . .

[xiphias]

So, I've been wanting to do some stuff with molecular mixology that involves gelatin.

But we keep kosher at home. So, if I'm going to experiment here at home, I'll have to do stuff using kosher gelatin. No problem, right? I've seen KoJel in the stores.

Um. No, KoJel is actually made of carrageenan, which, like agar, has somewhat different properties than gelatin. And slightly different properties than agar, although they're apparently close. But it's not gelatin.

Gelatin is an animal-based product, entirely. It's a form of proteins

Okay, what about fish-based gelatin? It looks like it's manufactured, but I can't find anywhere that sells it to end consumers like me -- it's used in the production of kosher marshmallows, but that's about it.

So, let's check the actual kashrut issues.

OMFG. NOW we're into actual crazy-making territory. You've got people arguing that gelatin made from pigs IS kosher to be used, even in dairy meals, but you can't use gelatin made from kosher fish in meat meals. Um. Yeah. We're WAY outside the realm of common sense here. (Well, see, the prohibition is against MEAT from non-kosher animals, but gelatin is made from pig hides, which aren't edible, and therefore there is no prohibition. And, see, since it's not meat, you can mix it with dairy. However, there is a rabbinic principle in some communities that, although it's not treif, one should be careful about not mixing fish and meat, and THAT prohibition still stands even though the gelatin is not meat.

We are definitely well into WTF!? territory here.

I swear, the easiest thing for me to do will be to wait for my mother to get smicha, and then as HER for a ruling. I could ask a different rabbi, I suppose, but, well, I think it would be funnier to make Mom have to deal with it.

Or I can just try to re-work the methods of molecular mixology to use agar instead of gelatin. Be better for my vegetarian friends, too, I guess. Except that some of the molecular mixology stuff uses the re-melting properties of gelatin, while agar, once solid, will never re-liquefy. . . .

Comments

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Easy fix. Define yourself to be in a community that *does* allow mixing fish and meat.

...and what are you doing using *meat* in your drinks? I'm havng bizarre images of "And *this* one is a gelatinized Chambord served over a rare ribeye..."

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Add some bleu cheese and I'd eat that.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Lis got a drink which was a pear liqueur and port. It was good, but it needed something to cut the sweetness, and we were kicking around ways that you might be able to incorporate bleu cheese or Stilton or something.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Garnish with crumbles of bleu. I would totally drink it. Well..no, I wouldn't, because the port would give me a ferocious migraine. But you see what I mean.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'd be using meat in my drinks if I was using gelatin, except that I wouldn't be because gelatin isn't meat even though it's made out of meat connective tissue because . . . .

Look, I love pilpul as much as the next guy -- more than the next guy, usually, unless I'm standing next to you -- but the issues around gelatin make my brain hurt.

And, yeah -- that gelatanized Chambord over ribeye sounds FANTASTIC, doesn't it?

[redbird]

Wait a minute. Fish is pareve. Are they going to be telling you not to mix apples and meat next, because people make apple-and-cheese sandwiches?

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

This was my thought too. I don't get why you can't use fish geletin (other than it's yucky)

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

I think you lost me after pig hides...

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

How about fruit pectin? Also different properties than gelatin, but it might play nice with the sort of liquids you'd be using and do the same job without all the issues.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be playing with that, too. At the moment, I've got some in the fridge. I don't know how to use it, but I'm going to be figuring it out.

Still, I'd like to do the gelatin version at least ONCE to see how OTHER people have done it, just to get a feel for the process. . . I may never follow somebody else's recipe the second time I make something, but I don't mind having a starting point that I have reason to believe works. . .

[kightp.livejournal.com]

So, if you experiment somewhere other than your home - and presumably have others do the taste-testing for you - it would be OK to use gelatin?

In that case, I'd look for a friend (a) doesn't keep kosher and (b) would enjoy being a mixology guinea pig.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

That was going to be my answer too.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Ayup, and that may be what I end up doing. It's just, y'know. . . MY kitchen! I LOVE my kitchen. It's MINE. Mineminemineminemine.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. (-:

(My kitchen sometimes drives me nuts - there's a lot about it I'd change if I won the lottery or something - but I *so* get the Mineminemineminemine part!)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

In absolute terms, my kitchen sucks isn't very well designed. (Honestly, "sucks" is far too strong. I've been in kitchens that suck. This is NOT one of them.) But I'd still rather work there than in somebody else's kitchen.

It's got far too little counterspace -- it's actually got enough outlets, because we re-did the wiring in the house. I can keep a good half of the appliances that I use regularly plugged in at once. I can't FIT them all on the counter where I'd like them to live, but, eh.

We have a microwave that can boil a cup of water in only fifteen minutes, but we also have an electric kettle that can boil six cups of water in about three minutes, so that's not so much of an issue. I've got a KitchenAid mixer, a Blendtech blender, a Zorushi rice cooker . . . and that's all the counterspace right there.

We've already decided that my task for the first half of next week is attempting to re-organize the kitchen. See if that helps.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

You have a Blendtech blender? ENVY!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I assume you're familiar with this guy? He has a whole recipe collection for hydrocolloids. From his table, you should maybe investigate low-methoxyl pectin.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No, I wasn't. Thank you! This is now THREE vitally-important-to-my-career-goals websites that friends have pointed me to in comments of various posts I've made. Thanks!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

You obviously have a good and wise flist ;-).

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

What if you assemble hydrocarbons into protein chains yourself and they just happen to be the same as beef protein. Would that be prohibited?

Now, getting a nano factory set up for this, yeah, that's another problem.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, that's among the questions -- some of the arguments that permit gelatin from non-kosher meat sources effectively DO argue that -- that gelatin is a non-meat product assmbled from proteins which were extracted from a meat source -- that the extraction process so changed the nature of the product that they ceased to have any relationship with the original source.

Now, if I started from, say, water and graphite and built protein chains that linked into a coloidal form as a gelatin, I think that EVERYONE would agree that that would be permitted. For gelatin, anyway -- creating entirely-artifical pork or rabbit or lobster would bring in a number of other issues that gelatin wouldn't have.

The problem, of course, is that I don't personally have the ability to do that, so it doesn't do that much to solve THIS problem.

[richardf8]

I once delved into this for entirely different reasons. There are those who also define gelatin, and cochineal for that matter, as דברים חדשים, things so completely different from their sources that they constitute a whole 'nother thing. I find it hard to hold with these rulings, since they defy common sense. When I was growing up, our Hebrew school never got Carvel because of the gelatin. Always Baskin Robbins.

[goljerp]

This makes much more sense to me. I haven't investigated Gelatin, but Rennet is something I *have*. Maybe it's my chemistry and molecular biology background, but if you're extracting enzymes from something, you end up with enzymes, not food. Doesn't matter whether they came from cows, pigs, bacteria, or whatever.

But actually, I think what Mr. Swordfish really needs is someone to get bacteria to express the protiens which are used in gelatin. I could do it in about 3 years for around a million dollars. That figure is probably higher in $ and time than someone who actually has a lab and has been doing this kind of thing more recently than 10 years ago. That's for small amounts, though, I don't know how much money and time it would take to get commercial quantities and purity.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I don't really have advice, besides a small caution (pectin can be a problematic replacement for gelatin, because it requires so much sugar, acid, and heat to set) and our kitchen is chronically a mess (and I understand the "but I want to cook in my own kitchen" impulse, I so do), but it's still available to you if you like.