There is a joke running around that you can sum up most Jewish holidays as "They tried to kill us, they faied, let's eat."

Since I am Jewish- by birth, if not by actions any longer- I feel I should have more to say on the meaningfulness of various holidays, but all I really want is an excuse to eat challah and charoses together. And any real jew knows those are never seen on the table together.

I'm so far behind that I missed this the first time around.

I laughed so hard, it took me 15 minutes to pick myself up off the floor.
I mean come on...ham.

My wife is Catholic. I'm Jewish. Since our daughter spent her formative years in London, she's sorta' Church of England. And the cats, being Siamese, are Budhists. We get all the holidays and the food thereof -- from ham to Yorkshire pud to tsimmis. Although I'm not sure that Fancy Feast is really a Budhist specialty.

RoCK -- on the other hand, Sarah Silverman made this memorable observation about how, if she ever married Jimmy Kimmel, she might have to explain her mixed marriage to her kids one day: "Mommy is one of the chosen people, and Daddy believes that Jesus is magic."

On the ocassion of the one grandson's bris, when I arrived at his house to find three generations of his mother's familly setting out mountains of food, his other grandmother said, You must think we're terrible, partying over such a thing.... I said, You have to fill the bacon void....

RoCK,
You are right. Ham...what's not to like? Its bacon's big brother!

Ours, too, is a mixed marriage; I am Jewish and my wife is Catholic [or at least that's how we were raised].
Our children, despite years of CCD classes, are proud non-believers and we think our daughter-in-law is a Druid. They have no concept of the religious or historical implications of holidays on either side, but they do know which foods go with which ones.

Our daughter, especially, has been known to ask, "Is this the hamentashen one?" She comes by this through rigorous training. The only way I could get her to go to Sunday school was to stop at Dunkin Donuts for Boston creme goodies to eat on the way.

I can't abide by any religion that forbids bacon -- hell it could actually BE my religion. Sometimes when I am in a sticky situation, I snap my WWBD bracelet and ask. What would bacon do? Wrap itself around the problem and make it all better.

Like so many religious imperatives, the Jewish prohibition against pork dates back to outbreaks of trichinosis in biblical times. The only way to get poor and hungry people to relinquish a source of food -- even if it could kill them -- was to say it was God's law. While Orthodox Jews continue to observe the dietary laws, I suspect there are many more of us who thoroughly enjoy a pulled pork sandwich and a hefty platter of bacon and eggs.

The late anthropologist Marvin Harris is skeptical of the trichinosis hypothesis. He posits this explanation: Pigs are not a good choice of food for a nomadic people, because they do not travel well, are sensitive to extremes of temperature, and eat the same food that people do. Sheep and goats, however, fit a nomadic lifestyle because they can be herded easily and eat grass. They are a better bet for survial of both people and animals. There has to be a religious taboo against pork, because it tastes so damn good that people would prefer to eat it, even against their own self-interests.

I freely paraphrase his argument, which you can find in his Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches.

I was going to stay out of the kosher wars here, but Marvin Harris is the worst kind of pop-scientist, one who obfuscates rather than enlightens.

My college anthro. prof. had us read him so we would know what bad scholarship looked like.

Is the taboo against pork or is it an animal with a split hoof??

a. Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud; that you may eat: The rule was simple. If an animal had a divided hoof (not a single hoof as a horse has), and chewed its cud, it could be eaten.

b. These you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: For example, the camel, the rock hyrax, and the hare all chew the cud, but do not have divided hooves - instead, they have paws - they are considered unkosher.

c. And the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you: Additionally, the swine has a divided hoof, but it does not chew the cud - so it is considered unkosher.

i. “It is now known that the pig is the intermediate host for several parasitic organisms, some of which can result in tapeworm infestation. One of these worms, the Taenia solium, grows to about 2.5 m in length, and is found in poorly cooked pork.” (Harrison)

this is from enduring word commentaries. For what it's worth. All of my observant (kosher) friends tell me that there really doesn't need to be reasons for. Because God said so is sufficient.

Hue -- see the following excerpt from The Brick Testament (14 pages) for the rules from Leviticus on What Not to Eat.

There is no simple answer to that, Hue. Kashrut makes a fascinating study. Some spend their entire lives studying it.

Well, for all of us Goy, let us be thankful for Kosher laws. Without them we wouldn't be able to get yellow cap Coca Cola in the spring.

For those who don't know, yellow cap Coke is made with sugar not corn syrup on account that corn products are prohibited during Passover.

Religious tradition & Food ... a hanging curve in my wheelhouse!

Our household is deeply steeped in the notion that sitting down to eat is a holy thing. We say grace, but include a variety of traditional forms, not all Christian. Friday night supper for as long as I can remember is fish and bread (see John 6) but whenever someone else's high holy day shows up on a public calendar we eat accordingly. Latkes on Hanukkah are only the beginning (my daughter is a grad student at Boston University in Religion & Society, with an emphasis on Interfaith Dialog).

With all of that, I think that an important part of the food-religion thing has to do with the value of discipline itself. I, too, am not sure that the trichinosis thing explains the Jewish dietary prohibition. Given the rarity of pork in the ancient Jewish world, I think it has more to do with limiting "exoticism." That matches exceedingly well with the last commandment against "coveting," which I take to mean an inappropriate reorientation of energy and interest to obtain an inappropriate goal. (I'm allowed to want a Corvette; I'm not allowed to neglect my family and community to get two extra jobs to buy one.) A little self-control goes a long way, and there is no more public and/or private place for that to be exercised/demonstrated than at the table. Surely none of the more popular gods care who eats meat or fish on a given day of the week, but by the same token the same attention to life's details that creates that discipline works wonders on the world's greater problems.

Here, here, RoCK! Love the real original coke!

I get real Coke year around at the little Mexican grocery stores in my neighbourhood. No corn syrup there.