Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food by Roger Horowitz (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food by Roger Horowitz
Kosher USA, by Roger Horowitz, is an invaluable look into the history and development of kosher certification in the United States. It demonstrates that kashrut is not static. Kosher certification is not simply about enforcing rules, but rather interpreting them in new contexts. Moreover, Horowitz illustrates the process by which Orthodox Jewish individuals and organizations established certification programs, which then created new structures for debating and adjudicating kashrut, and new hierarchies of authority within the American Jewish community.
Chapter 2 and 3 focus on the certification of Coke and Jell-O, respectively, highlighting the anxiety that came to the fore as modern industrial food processing forced Jewish communities to delineate the relationship between scientific and religious knowledge. For each of these products, industrial ingredients that bear little resemblance to traditional foodstuffs problematized kosher certification. In both cases, some rabbis deemed these ingredients kosher, while others objected. In part, the difference lay in interpretation of Jewish law. Did the glycerin in Coke, derived from non-kosher animal [End Page 77] sources, make the beverage treif? Perhaps the minute percentage of glycerin in a larger mixture could be fall under the rule of bitul (nullification) even thought this status had traditionally been reserved for small amounts of non-kosher ingredients unintentionally introduced to a kosher food. Likewise, had the gelatin in Jell-O been so chemically transformed that it could be considered kosher regardless of its origins? In these cases, the scientific nature of modern food production processes called into question the very ability of rabbis to rule on the kosher status of food. Initially, rabbis rejected any attempt on the part of lay scientists to encroach on their authority. Over time, however, rabbinical authorities conceded that scientific expertise was a necessary component of determinations about kashrut.
Chapter 4, “Who Says It’s Kosher?,” examines how the Orthodox movement came to dominate kosher certification in the United States. Once Orthodox rabbis had come to terms with the role of science in modern food systems, they used their authority to restructure the American kosher industry around their trademarks. As a result, the Orthodox Union (OU) in particular became “a central church of Orthodox Judaism.” (101) In the past, individual shoppers, if necessary in consultation with local rabbis, decided if a food was kosher or not. Starting in the latter part of the twentieth century, the industrialization of food networks made this impossible. If expert knowledge was required to determine what was in a food product, kashrut itself had to become a science, and trademarks became the ultimate proof of kosher status.
Moreover, as the OU and other Orthodox certifiers created sophisticated organizations, they were able to dominate the field of kosher supervision in the United States. In fact, conservative rabbis had never tried to create national organizations dedicated to kashrut. Orthodox religious institutions garnered profits from their certification programs and were then able to channel monies to proselytize for Orthodox Judaism, and against the conservative and reform movements. This explains, in part, the “renaissance of Orthodox Judaism in the latter part of the twentieth century.” (104)
Chapter 5 engages an important debate about the success of kosher food in the American processed food industry. Sue Fishkoff, in Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority (Knopf, 2010), and others, have pointed out that the majority of consumers of kosher food in the United States are non-Jews. The standard reason given for this has been that American consumers, anxious about what is in their food, understand kosher to mean healthy and high quality. This explanation has never satisfied me. What percentage of consumers purchasing Heinz Ketchup or Newman’s Own Ranch Dressing are even aware that they are kosher? Most consumers buy kosher products inadvertently. Horowitz provides a compelling explanation for this. Focusing on food chains, he highlights the influence of institutional consumers...
