SOMETIME SENTIMENT TRUMPS KASHRUT

Ever since I declared myself an amateur chef, I have spent most of my culinary life trying to make forbidden food conform to the rules of kashrut, and I have been relatively successful:

Properly cured duck’s breast is a wonderful substitute for pork prosciutto. A glazed veal roast is a remarkable substitute for ham. Seared ahi tuna loin is indistinguishable from the finest filet. Carefully poached and chilled halibut make a delicious ersatz crabmeat cocktail, when surrounded by a piquant tomato sauce. Kosher Polish sausage is a great replacement for highly seasoned pork andouille in a Cajun gumbo or jambalaya.

But, when all is said and done, the American-Jewish appetite is not about converting the illicit to the permissible. To the contrary, it is about the dubious, but almost universally touted, notion of “kosher-style.” Just what is kosher-style? If I wanted to be cynical, I would say that its practitioners may as well be eating liverwurst and muenster on Christmas stollen.

Alas, on this topic I am not cynical, for despite its legalistic hypocrisies, kosher-style food touches a warm spot in my heart. For the American Jew of Eastern European descent, kosher-style is equivalent to the food that grandmother prepared in the tenements of immigrant neighborhoods, now minus the strictures of kashrut: brisket, kugel, garlicky pickles, stuffed derma, corned beef, chopped liver, matzo ball soup and so on.

Kosher-style beef and poultry, however, are not slaughtered to kosher standards and are typically purchased from the neighborhood supermarket. The seasonings, though, are straight from grandma’s kitchen. Meat and dairy products may be cooked or served side by side, but the combination will be corned beef and cheese, never ham and cheese. The same for sour-cream napped potato salad and coleslaw accompanying spicy kosher-style hotdogs, but never porky bratwurst. Chicken soup and matzo ball may make a perfect appetizer for lox and cream cheese on a bagel.

The kosher-style delicatessen has become a venerated American phenomenon. It has institutionalized the notion that kosher is first and foremost a matter of Jewish sentiment, not legalism. Ironically, among the most prized item on the kosher-style menu is the Reuben sandwich: layers of corned beef, sauerkraut, Russian dressing on rye bread and topped with melted Swiss cheese, an ultimately non-kosher concoction, yet somehow intertwined with Jewish heartstrings.

Yet, Jewish sentiment seems to have no limits: A friend accompanied his companion to a renowned kosher-style restaurant in Miami Beach during Passover. After a bowl of chicken soup, the companion meticulously ordered a Reuben sandwich . . . on matzo! Before my friend could ask, his companion explained, “I promised my mother on her deathbed that I would eat only matzo on Passover.”