Paradise Vacation

Kashrus Complication

Oftentimes at high end resorts, these statements can be heard. "The chef knows kosher", or "I'm only getting fish in a brand-new pan", or "The resort has a separate kosher kitchen". Unfortunately, these statements are becoming more and more common, but it really boils down to just 1 question says Rabbi Sholom Tendler - Kashrus Administrator at the STAR-K, "Is there a mashgiach?" Are we really going to trust non-Jewish staff about kashrus now? Who ensures the pots and pans in the separate kitchen, stay separate? Let's educate ourselves about the myriad potential problems with such resorts.

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R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus, presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project and the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Sholom Tendler, kashrus administrator at the Star-K. Thank you Rabbi Tendler for joining us once again.

R’ Sholom Tendler: Pleasure, thank you for having me back. Appreciate it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Today we'd like to discuss a very important topic, something that comes up, perhaps at one time it would have been only during the summer or only during travel season, but now people seem to be traveling all over all year round traveling to more exotic places. It's become very in vogue. People going to Panama, Cancun, Puerto Rico, other locales in South America, which may be not have might not have been as common years ago.

I think it's become much more common. So if someone's going to a hotel with a hashgacha, obviously they should find out whether the hashgacha is reliable, what the standards are. But something that's been coming to our table here at Let's Talk Kashrus is something called like a “kosher brand”. They go to either a resort or a private cabin or something like that, and and they literally advertise that they offer kosher, whatever that means.

They don't have a hashgacha, they don't have a mashgiach. Talk about that. Is there anything to be done about that and how people should be aware that there are many kashrus pitfalls involved?

R’ Sholom Tendler: Yeah, I still get stunned by the question whenever this comes up. The typical question is I'm going to X, Y, and Z resort, it's under X, Y, and Z hashgacha, is it reliable? Fair question.

Gets a fair answer. Either we know, we don't know, look into it, at least we know what we're dealing with. But this new thing that's been coming up recently where people go to these exotic resorts and private vacations in in you rent cabins or houses and they offer kosher.

So, you know, in the old days, which is probably not too long ago, they would offer packaged meals, airplane meals. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean those packaged meals you find in the supermarkets. They have high-end meals that they would offer in these places, but again, it's packaged, sealed. I've been to high-end events, you know, for non-kosher companies and things like that where they offer you these sealed meals, and you can do really high-end stuff there.

But we're past that at this point. Now they're offering you fresh, cooked meals. The chef claims he knows kosher. Maybe he used to work in a New York hotel, and they're offering no mashgiach, no kosher kitchen necessarily.

They they claim they keep dedicated equipment for kosher. As you said, the the potential problems are are endless. It's hard to know where to start. Who's buying the ingredients? Kosher meat, kosher chicken, only fish.

Yeah, kosher fish, what kind of fish? You someone saw the scales? Forget salmon. Salmon, salmon's for the sushi people. This is already more high-end stuff. How in the world do you know that a skinned piece of fish in front of you, you know, with is a kosher piece of fish? Bishul Akum, shared equipment.

You really believe that if they they're short a pot or a pan that they're not taking from the kosher stock? So, I happened to have the fortunate experience that some of my mashgichim have worked in these places with families that have gone to these kinds of resorts and decided they want to do it right. We didn't certify them. Let's be very upfront about that. But they hired a mashgiach, experienced mashgiach, to go in advance, kasher, order, bring the food, work with the chef and make it as much kosher, as kosher as they were comfortable with.

Everyone according to their standards, but I'm not going to judge on that piece. But at the end of the day, I got we got a little picture of what goes on in these places. These people brought a mashgiach. So the mashgiach was shmoozing with the chef.

And it's it's like, once in a while a mashgiach comes to one of these types of trips, but not always. And people just trust the chef.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Which which is it's ludicrous.

R’ Sholom Tendler: It's completely ludicrous.

It's hard to say something and we generally like to just like cushion things a little bit, but this is like there's no cushioning it. There's there's just no way to rely on such a thing unless there's a hashgacha behind it or at the very least you have a mashgiach, a shomer Torah u'mitzvos you can confirm is standing there, is going to be there to confirm that things there are kosher. And and if you think that the non-Jewish person in the kitchen is going to make sure everything stays separate, like I have many bridges to sell you. I won't start with the Brooklyn Bridge and I won't end with the Susquehanna.

We're going to go to many bridges and you're going to buy them all.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, it it really it boggles the mind to think that people who at home have a certain standard, when they travel suddenly because some resort is offering kosher with zero certification, no mashgiach, no hashgacha, somehow we're taking their word for it and the chef who's a non-Jew who may be well-meaning, suddenly we're trusting him. The the whole thing is really hard. It's hard to believe that we're even addressing it.

But apparently, it's so prevalent that it needs addressing and it needs to be spoken about and people have to be really really really vigilant.

R’ Sholom Tendler: As we've gotten, I mean vigilant is a bad word for it. Just don't do it.

Just don't do it. Just don't do it. And we've gotten so many questions about it and and again, it's just it's it's literally like you said, mind-boggling to think what people would rely on. I it's it's just hard to understand.

And we're not speaking this because we want the job. I'll be very upfront. We are not interested in certifying your personal vacation, okay? I don't care how much money you're going to pay us. We're not interested in it.

There's nothing to do with that. It's very simple is that we see what goes on and we know what goes on and you don't. You don't. Right? And people don't know what's going on in the back of restaurants and and we do.

And Baruch Hashem, in places that have hashgachos, you tend to believe and like to believe and for good reason that hashgachos do a good job. But in these kinds of situations, you're totally left to rely on Chef John, whoever, and it's very hard to understand why people are being someach.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Any other final thoughts on this topic of kashrus while traveling?

R’ Sholom Tendler: So I would just encourage people. There's ways to do this right, as I mentioned in the beginning. We travel too, and we travel to far-flung places many times. A little bit of advanced planning, you can you you can do this and you can do it right and you can enjoy your vacation in exotic places.

I'm not necessarily encouraging people to do that, but if you do want to go, don't just decide as you mentioned, your Yiddishkeit doesn't end when you leave your front door. I think that doesn't need to be said even. But at the end of the day, there are ways to do this with a little bit of advanced planning. Call, ask, work it out.

Often, you know, it's not necessarily as complicated as you think. But the one thing you should not do is don't just take random people's word for things. And make sure they're coming from reliable sources that you would rely on in your own home.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Got it. Thank you so much