Olive oil

[seedcorn]

@so lucky hogs haven't been like that for over 30 years. Want lard, kill potbelly hogs. There are a lot of them that the owners fed them too much (think average dog owner) and they outgrew their cuteness.

Hogs are what you feed them. IF you don't feed a lot of hard starches (corn) their fat will literally run out of the meat. Industry tried liquid fats because of cheap energy, could feed a "healthy" fat but the meat becomes pale and soft-not appealing at all.

I get a kick out of people that talk about "pure bred" hogs. They don't exist in America by the definition most would assume. About all breeds have another breed bred into them to stop the in breeding defects from showing up. Difference between a Berk, Duroc, York is in the buyers mind.

 

[seedcorn]

Does anyone know the reason some religions forbid eating pork?

According to Jewish laws, forbidden to eat divided hoved animals. Most of their laws made sense from health standards. God handed it to Moses who handed it to Aaron who told the people.

 

[Nyboy]

Don't lambs have hoves?

 

[canesisters]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_animals

Almost all animals that we commonly eat have hooves.
Leviticus also lists the 'chewing of the cud' as important.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

As someone who is Jewish (though I don't really practice) Let me clarify

The rules say that in order to be eligible to be kosher an animal HAS to have cloven hooves (so no horse) AND chew it's cud (pigs don't)

To cover everything here are the rest as far as I remember

Birds- Can't be carnivorous, has to have three toes on each foot (this means that Ostrich is not kosher (since it has two) but Emu is.)

Fish-Has to have scales

Insects- all non kosher EXCEPT some kinds of locust (I've often wondering if some enterprising retailer might want to raise the approved kinds and market them as a kosher alternative to shrimp.) Honey is OK too (in fact, you HAVE to use it for a lot of things)

Dairy- Can't be mixed with meat or poultry (fish is OK) or eaten within a certain time of eating it (2 hours from dairy to meat, 6 hours from meat to dairy). If cheese, must be coagulated with a vegetable rennet (since normal rennet is an animal product)

Eggs: Paerve (totally neutral, can be used with meat or milk) Though I suspect that one is supposed to restrict oneself to eggs from creatures that are themselves kosher (so no turtle omelets or iguana drinking snacks.)

The rules get a LOT more complicated and there is little agreement between sects, but that is a decent rough framework.

Back to OO

I use quite a bit of OO. I do have some I like better than others, but since a lot of my OO comes from the food sections of places like Home Goods (which is stocked with closeouts and remainders) I try and avoid getting to wedded to any specific one (since I never know when, or if I'll see that one again)

The one thing I DO pay attention to is the type of olive being used, as I like some olives better for oil than others. I get a look of Greek and Cretan OO's since I'm okay with the Koroneki olive or as I think of it the "rooster olive" (when I first saw the name I though it said kokoraki which is Greek for rooster.) NOT kalamanta (it may be a good olive for snacking (if you like olives I don't)

The Best olive oil I EVER got was from Lebanon (I think, the bottles said Liban, and I think that means Lebanon not Lybia) It was part of a varital series that Alawai (big Mediterranean foods importer) did from various regions. It came from an olive orchard that had had the same trees for something like 5,000 years. Unfortunately I'm totally blanking on the name (as I said there were a lot of oils in that series and my brain is refusing to match name with oil.) But alas the bottle I found was the only one I ever found.

Back when I could get it, I also cooked a lot with Camellia oil (oil extracted from the seeds of tea) which is supposed to be best for stir frying and frying since it has a ridiculously high smoke point (according to Buddhist monks the lightness is gives to fried foods will also lighten you soul.)

 

[seedcorn]

Thanks for correction.

 

[valley ranch]

Lamb have hoves.

No foods are forbidden Christians, while some are frowned upon. All ,food animals, that God created are permitted.
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This is Christmas day, Surp Sanoont, Holy Birth!

Best love and care to you and your loved ones!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Depends on when (both time of year and period of history) Early Christianity was a lot stricter on fast days than any of the modern ones. For various parts of the year, meat, dairy, wine, fruit, even bread were forbidden (and awful lot of those "pardons" and "indulgences" that the Catholic church was handing out were simply being sold to people to let them eat, since for pretty long parts of the year the fast days technically called for abstaining from all food except minimal bread and water for months on end (a lot of European churches have what are called "butter towers" which were paid for EXCLUSIVELY with the money parishioners paid to be able to eat butter and other dairy during lent.)

The early Church also had an odd relationship with rabbit. Early on, it was forbidden since it was believed they lacked an anus (no, I don't know how they believed that, but it may be similar to the famous argument about how many teeth a horse has.) Later it was not only okay to eat, but was okay to eat at lent provided it had never touched the ground (some scholars believe that was the origin of rabbit farming, since the only way to make sure the rabbits never touched the ground was to be there when they were born.) Similar hair splitting occurred with things like the Barnacle goose (because they thought they grew from trees) and the Iguana (missionaries in South America decided that they were a kind of fish that happened to have legs and live on land)

For a lot of early history tasty food PERIOD was considered a major sin. That's what "gluttony" originally meant, not eating too much but enjoying eating AT ALL. It was supposed to be a necessary chore, and one to be made as unpleasant as possible. Leading to things like the famous Beer edict (basically a group of German monks who drank a heavy bock beer to fortify themselves during Lent worried that this might be wrong, so the sent a barrel to the Vatican to see what they thought. The Vatican staff, being all Italian (and wine drinkers) found beer so bitter and unpleasant that they not only sent back a message that drinking it during Lent was OK but that the monks should be commended for inflicting such a horrible penance on themselves!