Rabbi Sholem Fishbane shares surprising details from the kashrus trail he wishes everyone knew

Photos: Avi Gass

Food and drink production has evolved light years since most meals were grown on the family homestead, and today a simple snack can contain 50 ingredients from as many countries, making mashgichim into today’s biggest globe-trotters. Corn coated salmon, edible ink printed on meat, and ivory coffee have yielded complex issues in today’s kashrus industry, and that’s before we discuss kosher-for-Pesach macaroni.

Rabbi Sholem Fishbane has been on the kashrus scene for almost 25 years, as Director of Kashrus for the Chicago Rabbinical Council and executive director of the international board of hechsherim known as the AKO (Association of Kashrus Organizations). He’s passionate about educating kosher consumers to stay alert to changing kashrus realities and the urgency of following reliable rabbinic guidance, both year-round and even more so come Pesach. He shares some surprising stories from the kashrus trail, as well as gems of information he wishes the kosher observant public would know.

GO FISH

I go to Alaska every year to supervise fish factories. It’s one of my favorite places in the world, an absolutely gorgeous place where you can see the beauty Hashem has created for us, and I’d advise anyone to go over there in August, when the weather is warm and sunny.

The fish companies there raise infant salmon, then release them into the wild ocean. The way Hashem made it work is that when it comes time to spawn, the salmon swim back to the spot where they were born. The companies breed millions of fish babies and then wait for the grown fish to return at least two years later in the summer, so that they don’t even need to send out boats to make a catch.

The salmon are flash frozen and then sent to the mainland, but when I saw them dipping the frozen fish into corn water, I asked why. Apparently, it’s because the corn gives the fish a nice shine and keeps them oxygenated. Now, when the salmon is bought for Pesach, we require it to be washed off.

The next level of fish farming is going to be genetic modification. The fish farmers have discovered that if they play around with the DNA of a salmon egg, implanting some of the DNA of an eel, it takes just 12 to 14 months to grow into an adult, rather than two to three years. This fish already exists — the industry calls it Frankenfish — and here go the questions. It looks like a salmon, swims like a salmon, has the same simanim as a salmon — but has different DNA.

Actually, at the moment the eel DNA is a lab DNA, not gleaned from a nonkosher breed, but as they play around with these methods some more, it will become a bigger sh’eilah.

The One That Got Away (And Almost Got Me)

I’m a shochet, and my father and grandfathers were also shochtim; — my father in Toronto, one grandfather in Apt in Poland, and the other in Baranovich. But my pedigree couldn’t save me from near death the first time I was in a shlacht hoiz.

In those days they would restrain the animal by lifting it by its hind legs and holding it with a clamp. All of a sudden, as we were about to shecht, there was a blackout and the electricity went off. It was dark, but you could still see that animal. It had been taken out of the holding pen and safely restrained for shechitah, but now that the electric clamp was loosened, it began to charge. Everyone else ducked and ran to secure places behind the pens, but I had no experience in running from an angry animal, and it went for me because I was right there. Luckily there was a shotgun there within reach — and one of the guys had good aim.

Since then, I’ve gotten more comfortable in slaughterhouses, and even though I don’t work as a shochet regularly, I sometimes find myself there to certify meat companies. One issue that sometimes arises there, surprisingly, is ink. After the shochet and the bodek determine that the meat is kosher, they often use edible ink to mark it. That ink is USD regulated for health reasons, and can only have certain ingredients, which includes alcohol. Because it is certainly edible, the cRc requires all companies producing cRc Pesach meat to cut off the ink. (Other authorities hold the opinion that since you can’t drink a cup of the stuff, it’s pagum and not problematic, and they don’t mandate that it be cut off.) We also certified a factory right here in Chicago that produces kosher l’Pesach ink for the egg division of Tnuva. That ink can literally be put into your Pesach pot.