This is the first time I’ve tried to eat only kosher food on the road. We called the hotel where we were going to stay (they have been really nice so I’m not saying where) and the guy asked if we needed a special dining room too. (No, we aren’t germ-averse, just food-specific) We got the dinner we had ordered and it came in paper containers (soup) and plastic plates (bread, good rare rib roast slice and green beans) and Styrofoam (tea.) I asked about the caterer — it was the local Jewish Home for the Aged! Lunch is later today so can’t report on that.
I’m having trouble getting used to this.
I want my mobility. I want my connection to the rest of the world through food. I want to walk into a diner at the beach or a middle eastern place in LA and just sit down.
I want — that’s the issue, isn’t it? I have to learn when to slam the “I want” into the drawer and just go with the rules. I’m perfectly comfortable doing it at home – but I don’t have to give anything up to do that, really. It’s just a matter of careful logistics. On the road it’s different. I feel the pull of the “outside world” that keeping kosher seems to limit in some ways. I need to learn how to handle this – and I don’t want to write too much about it right now. I just wanted to document this experiment in kosher road warriorhood. And to mention that in a hotel where they had no idea of the scope or reason for our requests they went out of their way to make it pleasant. That’s a lovely thing. If they can bother – I have to learn how to bother too without complaining.
If I’m really honest I have to say that my biggest fear is imposing anything on my non-kosher kids. They were not raised in all this and there’s no reason to expect then to live as we do. But I’m afraid it will become a burden between us – — not because of them — they are caring and considerate and will help us to do what we need — but because I’ll be guilty and apologetic and make everything harder for all of us by overcompensating – both at their homes and at ours. I know I’ll figure it all out but some days I’m more aware than others of the “giving up stuff’ side that is part of what has brought us to all the peace and beauty of this new life.
I have to agree with you again on this one: eating kosher at home is not that hard, especially with time and you soon find that what was once puzzling makes sense after a while.
But it starts to get difficult once you are outside your home. Now if you live in France, this is virtually impossible unless you are in a big city and I do mean big. You can’t ask a hotel to provide you with kosher food since they would not know where to get it from in the first place.
So you’re left with two alternatives: you either make do with certified cold food; another nightmare sometimes which may lead you to have to settle for authorised food and not certified products. For instance tuna fish rather than salad with a kosher label. I have some friends who do that.
The other possibility is to go to a restaurant and order parve (neutral) food; fish is usually what comes to mind. In her excellent book “How to run a traditional Jewish household”, Blu Greenberg beautifully explains how she manages.
As far as I am concerned, I am not that strict because when I go to non-kosher restaurant I am with non-Jews and do not want to make a fuss in a country where food is so important. Maybe I should. So I usually end up with a vegetarian or fish meal. I know it is not kosher in the strict sense of the term and I certainly no longer eat non-kosher meat at a restaurant but this is as far as I can go … at the moment.