Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food

by Roger Horowitz

Overview

Kosher USA follows the fascinating journey of kosher food through the modern industrial food system. It recounts how iconic products such as Coca-Cola and Jell-O tried to become kosher; the contentious debates among rabbis over the incorporation of modern science into Jewish law; how Manischewitz wine became the first kosher product to win over non-Jewish consumers (principally African Americans); the techniques used by Orthodox rabbinical organizations to embed kosher requirements into food manufacturing; and the difficulties encountered by kosher meat and other kosher foods that fell outside the American culinary consensus.

Kosher USA is filled with big personalities, rare archival finds, and surprising influences: the Atlanta rabbi Tobias Geffen, who made Coke kosher; the lay chemist and kosher-certification pioneer Abraham Goldstein; the kosher-meat magnate Harry Kassel; and the animal-rights advocate Temple Grandin, a strong supporter of shechita, or Jewish slaughtering practice. By exploring the complex encounter between ancient religious principles and modern industrial methods, Kosher USA adds a significant chapter to the story of Judaism's interaction with non-Jewish cultures and the history of modern Jewish American life as well as American foodways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231540933
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Series:	Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Roger Horowitz is a food historian and director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. He is the author of Negro and White, Unite and Fight: A Social History of Industrial Unionism in Meatpacking, 1930–1990 (1997) and Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation (2005).

Table of Contents

Prologue: Uncle Stu's Question
1. My Family's Sturgeon
2. Kosher Coke, Kosher Science
3. The Great Jell-O Controversy
4. Who Says It's Kosher?
5. Industrial Kashrus
6. Man-O-Manischewitz
7. Harry Kassel's Meat
8. Shechita
Conclusion: Kosher Ethics/Ethical Kosher?
Epilogue: Remembering, Discovering, Thanking
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Hasia Diner

Set in the context of Jewish ascendancy into the middle class, Kosher U.S.A. traces the way in which changes in modes of production and the lure of consumption battered, challenged, and sustained an ancient Jewish practice. Horowitz tells a very readable story about the convergence of technology, science, religion, animal-rights activism, and ordinary Jewish consumers. There is no other book like it.

Editorial Reviews

Kosher USA is the single best book that I have ever read on the American kosher industry. It will entertain and educate both general readers and serious scholars.

H-Net Reviews

01/18/2016
Horowitz’s engrossing, in-depth book explores how modern food manufacturers get their food labeled as kosher, which effectively allows observant Jews (and the growing number of shoppers distrustful of the quality of their nonkosher food) to eat it. He touches on themes of tradition, identity, and assimilation. With the greater reliance on mechanization in the 20th century, determining whether foods and drinks were kosher met a host of new challenges. Coca Cola, previously deemed kosher, was an early litmus test for the Jewish community when concerns arose in the 1930s about whether it was kosher for Passover, which requires a stricter standard. The old way of determining the matter (rabbinical conference) had to give way to the importance of scientific knowledge of the chemical processing utilized to manufacture Coke and the value of that data in reaching accurate, updated conclusions. Even more debates raged about Jell-O, because the key ingredient of gelatin, derived from animal bones, may not be kosher. These decades-long arguments took place between Orthodox and Conservative Jews, revealing deeper rifts and decidedly different ideas about what being Jewish meant to each. Although the subject matter might seem bizarre or needlessly complicated to outsiders, Horowitz provides a fascinating window into a rarefied world. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Kosher USA provides wonderful insights into American Jewish culture and the impact of modern, mechanized food production on the community’s ability to adapt centuries of tradition to fast-paced modernity. The book will prove useful to those interested in food history, Jewish American history, or twentieth-century American business history.

Journal of American Culture - Lynn M. Lansdown

Written extremely well....this book is far more than tales; it is a chronicle of the changes of Jewish life in America in the last century.

Religious Studies Review

Kosher USA is the single best book that I have ever read on the American kosher industry. It will entertain and educate both general readers and serious scholars.

H-Judaic

Kosher USA introduces us to a remarkable cast of characters: the rabbis, scientists, home cooks, food companies and activists who spent decades wrestling with the term "kosher" in a passionate effort to tame it. Based on a rich array of sources, written with warmth and insight, this is an exhilarating study of how an ancient religious scruple became a modern American empire.

Laura Shapiro

This captivating book is recommended to all people who love to eat, learn, and enjoy a juicy corn beef sandwich followed by a tempting plate of chocolate Tofutti.

Jewish Book Council

Roger Horowitz's Kosher USA is a window into the world of the Jewish dietary laws and the conflict between being American and being kosher. The fascinating narrative tells the story of sturgeon, Coca Cola and Jello, as well as the intricate process of koshering meat in the modern world with the pivotal role of Temple Grandin and the large meat processors. An informative read for those who know and those who know nothing about kosher food's place in the American food system.

Joan Nathan

You don't have to be Jewish to love Roger Horowitz's Kosher USA! It is three stories in one: a family narrative within a history of kosher within the industrialization of the American food system. Well researched, insightful, and delightful—even for goyim.

Andrew Smith

The ever-changing and expanding kosher world makes this book quite timely and significant, as it traces the overlap interaction of religion and science.

The Jewish Georgian - Roberta Scher

Fascinating.

Western States Jewish History

As good food often does, Horowitz’s book leaves the reader deeply satisfied—but hoping for a few more morsels.

American Historical Review

The history of the kosher food industry is thus quite skillfully told by Horowitz.

American Jewish History

An informative and endlessly fascinating account of how Jewish law, modern food production, government regulation, business acumen, and religious politics have shaped the American kosher food industry. Roger Horowitz understands that arcane arguments over glycerin, rennet, and gelatin, and improbable tales concerning Coke, Kedem, Rubashkin, and Manischewitz form part of a larger and more important story. You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate his accomplishment!

Jonathan D. Sarna

I have... fun reading Horowitz's book.... Halfway through Horowitz's book, I get nostalgic.

Globe and Mail

Set in the context of Jewish ascendancy into the middle class, Kosher U.S.A. traces the way in which changes in modes of production and the lure of consumption battered, challenged, and sustained an ancient Jewish practice. Horowitz tells a very readable story about the convergence of technology, science, religion, animal-rights activism, and ordinary Jewish consumers. There is no other book like it.

Hasia Diner

★ 04/01/2016
In a work that is equal parts history, memoir, and cultural analysis, Horowitz (Putting Meat on the American Table) traces the dramatic rise of kosher food products, specifically how they made their way into American food culture and were later popularized in the mass market of consumer products. The reconciliation between ancient Jewish religious principles and modern kosher standards is filled with interesting twists and turns. Popular brands such Coca-Cola and Jell-O posed unique challenges for modern Jewish households seeking kosher products, and the author's rabbinic back-and-forth makes for a fascinating look at the search for accommodation within the "letter of the law." The author traces the many Kosher products that have become increasingly popular with non-Jews and explains that the market for kosher meat has been shrinking because of the increasingly prohibitive costs associated with production along with ethical concerns regarding the slaughtering process. VERDICT A valued addition to a conversation that spans several interests, including history, business, and religion.—Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton

Library Journal

2016-01-09
In this informative history, the author shows how Jewish dietary laws challenge food producers and consumers. Food historian Horowitz (Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation, 2005, etc.), director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at Delaware's Hagley Museum and Library, grew up in a family with varying relationships to kosher food. His Orthodox Jewish grandmother observed strictly; his maternal grandfather, a Conservative Jew, was less rigid; his mother sometimes bought cheaper cuts of nonkosher meat in local supermarkets. For Horowitz, his family's behavior raised a question "about religion and modernity. How could a set of practices and beliefs rooted in antiquity persist, and in some ways flourish, but at the same time also struggle to survive" in contemporary times? That struggle included the complicated, sometimes-controversial process of reformulating iconic American products to meet kosher standards. Coke, for example, used alcohol from grain in the manufacturing process, making it unsuitable for consumption at Passover, when leavened bread is prohibited. Changing the recipe to get alcohol from fermented molasses solved that problem. But Jell-O posed another: gelatin was derived from nonkosher animal bones. After much debate, a Lithuanian rabbinical scholar rang in: "When a forbidden substance is reduced to dust," he said, such as bones to gelatin, "it ceases to be prohibited by Jewish law." Although some kosher products are popular with non-Jews—sweet Manischewitz wine has broader appeal, and prisons find kosher food suitable for its Muslim inmates—the market for meat has been diminishing, partly because of cost, partly because of opposition to the ritual slaughtering process, in which cattle are hoisted by their hind legs, their throats cut while they are conscious. The author considers this and other ethical issues—responsibility to the environment, workers' health, and fair pay—involved in meat koshering. A thoughtful look at the convergence of faith, ethnicity, and the business of food.

Kirkus Reviews