KOSHER

or Kasher, MEAT, meat from an animal or bird that has been killed by a shochet, an expert meat inspector and butcher, in accordance with the rules of the Jewish Talmud.: A strictly kosher butcher must buy all his stock alive, the animals being generally killed in the slaughtering house by a shochet. Great care is taken to avoid exciting the animals, for their death must be as calm and as sudden as po ible. Bullocks, calves, and sheep are killed by cutting their throats with a special knife, the blade of which is about twenty inches long and two inches wide and is kept as sharp and highly polished as a razor. The cut almost severs the head from the body and the carca is allowed to bleed as freely and as long as it will—the object being to clear the flesh of blood, the consumption of removable blood being forbidden by the Jewish law. Chickens and geese are decapitated with a similar knife and are allowed to bleed in the same manner. When the bleeding has ceased, the carca is opened and a most minute examination of the lungs, entrails, ete., is made. The slightest defect will result in the shochet condemning the entire animal as tref (terefah)—unfit for food. If the animal is pronounced ‘‘kosher,’’ the meat undergoes the next operation of porging— the removal of all bloody veins and gristle. Because this operation involves a great deal of labor if applied to the hindquarters of bullocks and sheep, that part of the animal is in this country generally cla ed as ‘‘tref,’’ even when the carca in general is kosher, and is sold to Gentile butchers. The hindquarters of calves and lambs are retained and treated like the remainder of the carca . It is because of these special precautions that kosher meat ordinarily commands prices higher than the average of retail markets. In the orthodox household the meat is further treated by soaking in water and then by the application of salt to complete the extraction of removable blood, this being followed by thorough washing. Kosher corned beef is kosher beef prepared by, first, a thorough soaking in fresh water, next bedding for some time in dry salt, and then a second washing before immersion in the brine, where it must remain for twenty-four hours. All fresh fish of the sealy variety may be eaten without the intervention of the shochet, but the ordinary salt and dried fish of commerce come under the ban becanse of the po ibility that some matter not kosher may have been employed in preparing them. Swine, hare, frogs, snails, and fishes without scales or fins (as eels) are among modern foods which come under the cla ification of tref. The refusal of all meat that is not kosher is a matter of religious principle with the orthodox Hebrew. A practical advantage aceruing to him is that the careful personal inspection by the shochet guarantees him flesh in absolutely healthy condition, protecting him against the diseases liable to result from the consumption of the flesh of unhealthy animals. Applied to other foods, as ‘‘kosher bread’’ and ‘‘kosher butter,’’ the term signifies special care and cleanline in preparation and manufacture. The ve els and utensils used must not be employed for any other purpose and must be cleaned and inspected with great exactne .