Welcome to Project Paratha

This blog will chronicle our one year adventure to eat one Indian (or Indian inspired) meal or snack every day.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Non-Kosher B12 Gluten Free Thanksgiving

What a Thanksgiving.  Scharffenberger brut sparking wine from Northern California and a few firsts for the family.  We made some traditional Baltimore-style crab cakes, sans breadcrumbs with some percorino romano to bind the lump crab meat together.  They came out fabulously and Yael ate them which was surprising and delightful.  We will need to keep crabbie patties on the menu here.  Lisa made some wild rice and roasted beet, leak, and chestnut salad and a sugar free sweet potato pie with a pecan crust.  All gluten-free but not necessarily glutton-free.

We have been debating the merits of the whole kosher thing.  From a historical perspective dietary restrictions which might promote health/sanitary conditions and a means of identity and meaningful differentiation on a day-to-day basis make sense.  Thousands of years ago I'm going to guess there was no such thing as organic of free-range.  That was the standard and perhaps the only option in terms of meats.  Now, of course something might be kosher but no necessarily organic or free-range.  Is is possible to set a table with foods that are ethically cultivated, sanitary, based on fair trade practices and find differentiation from a religious perspective in other ways? Would I feel better eating a scavenger than kosher chicken that has passed through this world in a restricted pen?  Or, are the modern ethical/fair trade considerations just an additional layer on top of the existing kosher mandate?  I'm not sure and it is too heavy a set of questions to figure out this Thanksgiving.  I know we do like crab and it satisfies the need for a B12 gap Lisa has had in her diet.  Maybe we have the pseudo kosher rules of crabs in the house for the B12 but only on non-Jewish holiday rules.

We hope all our friends, family, and readers are safe, sound and well.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Michael