Symon disappoints with Passover menu
You can get the basics over at jcarrot.org, but Cleveland-native Iron Chef Michael Symon, whom I’ve been following ever since I read about him in Michael Ruhlman’s Soul of a Chef, took on a special Passover seder episode of Food Network’s “Dinner: Impossible.”
Did he make a white asparagus veloute with eggs and enoki? Veal osso buco with quinoa risotto? A flourless chocolate torte with raspberry coulis?
No.
He made brisket. Potato kugel. Matzo ball soup.
This guy has huge talent, amazing creativity, and they set him out to make traditional Jewish food. I don’t doubt it was a tasty meal, but such a waste! (And serious tzara’at going on, too — anchovies in the brisket, served with salmon-infused potato kugel.)
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You really can’t blame him… A: he wasn’t given a lot of time to prepare; B: he obviously wasn’t aware of Kosher for Passover rules before; and C: a lot of his menu seemed to be forced upon him-they kinda told him what to make and didn’t give him room for creativity.
Hey, I’ll gladly heap the blame on Food Network.
The whole point of ‘Dinner Impossible’ is that they do not have a lot of time and that there are limitation rules imposed.
However, the menu did seem to be imposed on him , though given his limited knowledge of Pesach Cooking that may have been of help.
They definitely should have sent someone with knowledge on the shopping trip (only OUP?)
Personally, I thought they went over the top with having him make a Seder. A Kosher meal made within Halachic guidelines would have been tough enough and more fun.
The final scene with him tearing into a sandwich full of pork was rude and disrespectful to Jewish tradition and culture. I will never watch that jerk on tv again.
I thought the pork sandwich scene at the end was cute (was that his own place?), though I would agree that had it been an Halal challenge they would not have done it for the reasons Phylllis mentions.
It seemed to me that he thought the menu was a 5000-year-old tradition that he couldn’t mess with, except at the margins. The caterer told him that we must have a carrot tzimmes, and he asked whether it would be OK to have a carrot salad instead! They were also absolutely insistent on a kugel; for all he knew it was a mitzvah mid’oraisa, more important than matzah!
As for the fish-and-meat, it’s a Conservative shul, and I think they allow it.
Milhouse is mostly correct regarding fish and meat within Conservative Judaism. While it is, as with most things, up to the individual rabbi, the CJLS unanimously (as if that ever happens in the CJLS) passed a teshuva stating that the prohibition on fish and meat on the same dish need not be considered binding anymore. Here’s the document: http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/docs/19912000/plotkin_mixing.pdf.
You don’t need to look to the CJLS for a heter for meat and fish together — the Magen Avraham said it was fine a long time ago — and he’s right on the page of Shulchan Aruch (YD 87). Enjoy your surf and turf.
Magen Avraham on YD?!
Perhaps you mean MA 173:1, in which case you’re reading far more into it than is there. All the MA suggests is that perhaps it isn’t obligatory any more to wash ones hands between meat and fish. He doesn’t give any reason to suppose that it actually is so, but merely points to other sakanot that we are lax about, so perhaps this one might be too. And he doesn’t even suggest that actually eating them together is OK.
I saw this episode and I think the problems with this challenge stem from the menu imposed on him from the get go. They shouldve really prepared him and supervised his menu & shopping instead of doing it backwards.
Considering kashrut was entirely alien to him, he seemed to have done a good job adding twists to our traditional foods.
The scene at the end with the pork sandwich was a bit distasteful I agree, but that also has to do with the nature of the challenge. Symon didnt have enough time to comprehend or understand Jewish traditions, or even what Pesach is all about. That means this was just another mundane task, with food he didnt prefer.
~Dani
http://www.yeahthatskosher.com