Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food by Roger Horowitz (review)
- Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food by Roger Horowitz
Roger Horowitz's Kosher USA is one of those terrific books that reminds us how little we know about the world. Before reading it, I had always operated under the (embarrassing) assumption that all it took to be kosher was eating food blessed by rabbis and keeping separate plates for meat and milk. Little did I know about the intricate debates Jews have been having for two thousand years about, for example, whether a sturgeon's tough appendages satisfy the biblical kosher requirement of "scales." More importantly, I did not know that kosher food was big business, and that it evolved—but did not always grow—in close connection with the development of America's modern industrial food system.
Horowitz offers two seemingly divergent yet ultimately symbiotic storylines. The first, in line with prevailing popular narratives of these events in the United States, is a story of success; over the course of the twentieth century, the availability and profitability of kosher packaged foods exploded. The second narrative, chronicling the rise and fall of large-scale kosher meat production in the United States, strikes "a more troubling tone" (4) and offers a "fuller, more complex, and at times more disturbing history" (5). [End Page 285]
Cleavages were always present—among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews' competing definitions of kosher (as well as between competing interpretations traceable to Ashkenazi or Sephardic traditions) and between lay science and rabbis—but powerful forces buttressed the rise of Kosher USA. Above all, kosher law gradually integrated modern food science. An early chapter details how (some) Coca-Cola became kosher. Horowitz writes that "it was the dynamic engagement of rabbinic authorities and food companies that yielded kosher Coke and opened the door to the widespread expansion of kosher food in America" (20). Coca-Cola was not kosher because, like many food products, it contained glycerin, a by-product of making soap from animals—usually treif, or non-kosher, animals. Coke offered a special version of its soda for Passover with a cottonseed oil–based glycerin, but this did not resolve the matter. Not until the late 1950s, when the company and Procter & Gamble invested thousands in a separate production line to ensure that even traces of meat-based glycerin did not come into contact with plant-based glycerin, would most Jews accept this special-run Coke as kosher. The Coke story shows that, by the postwar years, the science-based kosher certification vision of an Orthodox rabbi and chemist from New York named Abraham Goldstein had prevailed. Goldstein launched what eventually became the Orthodox Union certification agency.
The rise of "industrial kosher" in postwar America deepened the divide between Orthodox and Conservative Jews. Jell-O was an important fault line. Orthodox Jews deemed all gelatin derived from non-kosher animals as treif, whereas Conservatives, building on an ancient exception that allowed kosher honey to contain trace amounts of otherwise non-kosher bees' legs, insisted that the process of making gelatin produced a completely new and thus kosher material. Jell-O's manufacturer, General Foods, claimed the product was kosher, but most kosher consumers followed the Orthodox certifiers. The Orthodox Union became the dominant player in an oligopolistic industry of certifiers acting as a sort of trade organization; together, the certifying agencies erected an impressive system that sent certifying rabbis throughout America's food system and greatly expanded the number of kosher products. Early in the century, many homemakers relied on themselves to determine what was kosher; after World War II, third-party expertise prevailed.
Several factors beyond Jewish organization and lobbying promoted the proliferation of kosher offerings. Increasing food regulation demanded detailed analysis and testing of ingredients, the kind of science that made certification easier. Kosher often prevailed, because the investments it required were relatively modest. Indeed, beyond the goodwill they earned from appealing to a small minority of observant...
