Jul

7

On why I could never be an Orthodox Jew…

Filed Under Babbling, The history of me 

When you think of Judaism, quite often you hear the classic stereotype with no pork or bacon.

That could never be me.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a foodie because I’ll eat anything that’s placed on my plate. I’ll try everything at least once, and from there if I really like it, well, I’ll have it again. And I truly enjoy ethnic food–and not just the stereotypical “Jew walks into a Chinese restaurant” ethnic food.

Sarah and I frequent a few Thai restaurants regularly, have a favorite sushi joint (or two), love heading across to a good Indian restaurant, and head out to a few Spanish restaurants from time to time. The catch to eating ethnic food isn’t calling Taco Bell Mexican or Panda Express Chinese. Its about delving into the restaurants where you see those of that ethnicity eating and feeding that hankering when you have it.

And for me, today that hankering was Cuban.

Being raised in Spring Hill, Florida, there was a great little restaurant over in Masaryktown just down the road that served Cuban sandwiches and shoestring potato fries. You know, the really thin fries like what you find at Steak and Shake? Well, those.

And from this, with an amazingly rich flavor and the perfect combination of all of the ingredients that are so lovely and un-Kosher, well, I couldn’t be an Orthodox Jew.

Here in Orlando, I was lucky enough to find a great Cuban restaurant a few years ago. I was working for a telemarketing company for outbound timeshare sales and on my lunch break, I stumbled upon a Cuban restaurant that I could bike to from work: Adita’s Cuban Bakery. Right off of University by (what’s now a closed down) Krispy Kreme, they had a small storefront, but an awesome menu. And I’d stop by once a week and get a Mamey shake and a regular Cuban sandwich. It’d run me just about $10, and I’d always throw in a few bucks on top of that as a tip because I really liked the joint. Adita (I presume that’s her name because she was the main woman running it and it would only make sense) would always give me samples or this or that pastry to try, and as I noticed, it was usually about the same price as the tip I’d leave. Sneaky woman. Even still, I loved heading there. Everytime I walked in, I was treated like I was family. She remembered me.

Flash forward to today. With Sarah and I moving soon, I’ve thought about heading back there, but I just haven’t had the time. I’ve been craving that sandwich for a while. And today, I realized that inside the Chick-Fil-A on campus across from the printing shop and next to the Bookstore in the John T. Washington Center? They’d converted a whole counter space of the Chick-Fil-A into a small version of Adita’s shop! I had seen the sign outside for a while and thought they were just advertising their off-campus presence, but I had no idea they were right there, right in front of my nose!

After not visiting the restaurant for over a year, I saw a familiar face behind the counter who looked at me with a huge smile and said “Where have you been?”

Folks, let me tell you. If you can find a restaurant that they remember you and you haven’t been there in well over a year? And that they’re just as friendly as the first day you were there? And you can tell that the food was made with love and care and with respect for the ingredients because while simple it tastes great?

Don’t let a place like that slip out of your grips.

They’re one of the many things I’ll miss about this area… Great restaurant, great people, and I’m glad that I had a chance to meet them. Maybe I can work out some sort of deal to have her ship me a sandwich a week…

Comments

2 Responses to “On why I could never be an Orthodox Jew…”

  1. mfertig on July 7th, 2008 8:02 pm

    Hi … I happened across your blog because, as the editor of a newspaper writing primarily about Orthodox Jews, one of my Google automated search terms is (all together now): Orthodox Jews. Anyway, I remembered an article I read somewhere a few weeks ago that I thought you might find interesting. Here it is:

    To Be or Not To Be (Kosher)
    by Allison Josephs

    Existential angst and the Jewish dietary laws.

    When I was a kid, I used to feel really sorry for people who kept kosher. You see, in my home, we could eat whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. There was one exception however: a little holiday called Passover.

    Although we ate only kosher for Passover foods during the holiday, we thought nothing of eating them in a non-kosher manner. I remember one year when I was making matza pizza, I realized that salami would be a great stand in for pepperoni. So I took out the matza, spread on some kosher for Passover tomato sauce, covered it with kosher for Passover mozzarella cheese, and threw on several slices of kosher for Passover salami. When my mother walked into the kitchen and saw this concoction baking in her toaster oven, she started to scream at me, “Allison, what are you doing? You have to put foil down or else the cheese will drip everywhere!” It didn’t occur to either of us that there was something rather odd about being so careful to avoid eating leaven while having no concern whatsoever about mixing milk and meat.

    Even though our version of Passover kosher wasn’t that stringent, it was a nearly impossible feat for me to endure. Every commercial on TV with pasta or cereal tortured me. Every friend and classmate in the cafeteria eating bread in my presence drove me mad. On pizza day, forget about it.

    But throughout the dietary hardships, there was always one thing that comforted me. I knew I would get to go back to “normal” in only a more few days. And this was the exact reason why I pitied those people who always kept kosher. They never got to be “normal”. They never got to go back to eating whatever they wanted whenever they wanted - no shrimp, no bacon, not even a cheeseburger. It seemed like a pretty miserable existence in my opinion.

    And then the weirdest thing happened. I had been having this pesky existential crisis throughout my childhood and teenage years where questions like “Why am I alive?” and “What’s my purpose in this world?” kept popping into my head despite the fact that they were neither invited nor welcomed there. After many years of sleepless nights and morbid thoughts, it occurred to me to look into what Judaism had to say about these issues, and much to my surprise, I was completely blown away with what I saw. The wisdom, the lifestyle — all of it just made so much sense.

    I slowly started to learn more and add observances into my life: Shabbos, holidays, and yes…KOSHER. I decided to take it on in stages. After all, I was used to eating so much good stuff I figured in all fairness to myself I should at least give it up little by little. I stopped eating shellfish first. Next came bacon and all other pork products. Then, milk and meat. I was quite proud of my progress, so I kept on going. Next was non-kosher red meat and I was doing fine, hardly feeling the pinch. And then, when I least expected it, my kosher momentum came to a screeching halt. For there before me stood: the poultry issue.

    According to the arbitrary system that I had come up with, it appeared that giving up non-kosher poultry was next on the list. Everything else I had stopped eating up to that point had been fairly easy to do - the shellfish, pork, milk and meat all felt blatantly treif so it seemed appropriate to part with those delicacies. And as far as non-kosher red meat was concerned, I was hardly even eating it at the time of my kosher metamorphosis due to taste more than anything. But when it came time to say good-bye to non-kosher chicken and turkey, here were foods that were a staple of my diet yet didn’t scream treif, and the combination of these reasons convinced me how important these birds were to my existence.

    There were no kosher meat restaurants in my area at the time, and I just kept trying to imagine myself living a life where I couldn’t just go out and pick up a turkey sandwich whenever I felt like it. How would I ever be happy again, I wondered, if I could never meet my friends at a restaurant and order chicken fingers if the mood struck me?

    All that progress, and I was seemingly stuck with no way out. My life would be nothing short of horrible if I couldn’t have my choice of poultry whenever I darn well pleased. And then it hit me one day — the choices I had before me: turkey sandwich OR the meaning of life? Chicken nuggets OR a purposeful existence?

    I felt the squeeze with the poultry, but I decided to persist nonetheless with becoming kosher, because I realized that I had a goal in mind more profound than a chicken could ever hope to be. And after not too much longer, I had become fully kosher - in my home and out of my home - during the week of Passover and throughout the rest of the year.

    The first Passover I celebrated after becoming strictly kosher was a remarkable experience. No chametz (leaven) for eight days didn’t bother me one little bit. I didn’t feel a thing. My level of self-control - after having committed myself to dietary standards throughout the rest of the year - was now on a whole new level.

    Do I miss the foods I used to eat? Sure. Am I convinced that a Wendy’s bacon cheeseburger, with cheese fries, and a Frosty (just how I used to like it) will be waiting for me when I die and move on to the World to Come? Most definitely. (Although since food doesn’t exist in the hereafter the way it does in this world, I will gladly accept the meal in whatever currency is appropriate in heavenly terms.)

    Have I ever “cheated” or even considered the possibility of cheating? Not even once. Because no matter how much I enjoyed those foods (and I think my level of enjoyment has been made abundantly clear by now), what’s my body good for if I can’t control it? What’s my life worth if it’s not leading up to something greater than my next meal? That’s why I chose - to be kosher.

    —-

    Allison Josephs is the creator of http://www.JewintheCity.com, which features her online videos and blogs that challenge the public perception of Orthodox Jews and traditional Judaism. She is also is a regular blogger on ModestlyYours.net. Allison has been involved in the field of Jewish Outreach for ten years, teaching and lecturing, and has worked for Partners in Torah, Sinai Retreats, NCSY and Stars of David. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Columbia University and lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.

    This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/jewlariousFunnyStuff/jewlariousFunnyStuffDefault/To_Be_or_Not_To_Be_(Kosher)0.asp

  2. Adam on July 7th, 2008 9:41 pm

    Well, thank you for the long detailed reply…

    I’ll have to write a more serious entry about my Judaism sometime, I figured that this would just be a humorous title for me to use on this one.

    But for me, well, I’m just not that strict in my religiousness. I’m a fairly spiritual person, just not all that religious due to the fact that I haven’t been able to make the time for it for one, and for a second reason, I haven’t found a synagogue in a while that really accentuates me and what I need out of religion. I’m mostly non-practicing, but I do stick with “the big ones.”

    Needless to say, also being a foodie as I am, I know that there are a lot of amazing dishes out there in the world and I just want to experience all that I can in this world before the big one up high tells me my time’s up. And well, while I understand how the Kosher laws are dietarly sound and defined through science, I’ll take the stomachache for a short while.

    The article mentions something very interesting about controlling our bodies, and I believe that I shouldn’t tell myself “No, you can’t have that.” I think that everything is alright as long as it is in moderation.

    But definitely an interesting article. In the future if you find something like that, please link it and don’t post the full text… Makes it easier to read through any other comments that folks might choose to add here. ;)

    And thanks for the read. Please, stay around. I can be interesting from time to time. I’ll take a read of your site when I finish my final tomorrow and have a little more time to work with other things…

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    About The Site


    Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists and show reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!