Adventures in Exotica

The Challenges of Preparing a Feast of Exotic Kosher Curiosities

Preparing one of our exotic feasts for the Biblical Museum of Natural History is always an adventure. And by “adventure,” I mean something with thrills and excitement along with intense stress!

There was the time that the yeshiva walk-in freezer in which we were storing a swordfish suddenly broke, leaving me frantically calling around different yeshivos until we found another, and having to get samples of the fish tested for safety. There was the time that some very special geese escaped, which meant that my goose was only going to be cooked figuratively rather than literally; it left us desperately searching for last-minute replacements and doing a middle-of-the night shechitah. There was the time that the expensive pheasants, sourced with great difficulty, were housed in a cage awaiting shechitah next to our coati (a racoon-like animal from South America), who reached through the bars of his cage, grabbed them, and bit all their heads off. There was the time that I had to drive with a live peacock loose in the back of my car because there was no traveling container big enough to house it. There was the incident with a freshly shechted baby water buffalo and our giant python which I’d rather not remember.

This summer, with our Feast of Exotic Curiosities taking place in Los Angeles tomorrow, was no exception. One of the items on the ten-course menu is goat, and the first goat that the shochet slaughtered turned out to be treif (it had internal defects). So did the second.

Now, baby goats are not easy to come by in southern California, where people tend not to have kids. Fortunately our shochet managed to track down a Halal farm called “Zabiha” (cf. zevicha) run by a very religious man of the Islamic faith offering goats for Qurban (korban) and Sedaqa (tzedakah), who agreed to let our shochet purchase a goat for slaughter. Things nearly went horribly wrong when the shochet said something about Israel, at which point the Muslim man said, “There is no Israel, there is only Palestine!” but luckily hostilities were averted and the goat was successfully slaughtered.

At this point, early last week, I had just boarded my flight from Israel to Los Angeles, when I got a text from the shochet saying that the goat was slaughtered, butchered, and ready to be refrigerated, but the place where the previously slaughtered birds were refrigerated was locked and he couldn’t get in. Plus, he had to drive (!) back to the East Coast. Luckily El Al has wifi on their planes, and after a bunch of frantic texts, I was able to locate a shul with a large refrigerator that was willing to get my goat.

Arriving in Los Angeles, there were still some more species that I wanted to obtain, one of which was doves. It is not easy to find people who raise doves in California. I received the name of an operation in an industrial unit in Sun Valley which allegedly had some. But every time I called, there was no answer. Since I happened to be going to Sun Valley anyway to purchase some other birds, I decided to swing by the address and try my luck.

The drive through the winding hills of Coldwater Canyon is one of my favorite drives in LA. The scenery is beautiful and the trees are spectacular; the entire area is managed by a forestry organization called Tree People, dedicated to the professional management of trees. I always find the drive wonderfully relaxing. This time, however, a tree suddenly crashed into the road two cars in front of me.

It was surreal. The tree did not fall slowly, as I had always imagined trees fall; it simply plummeted down with a gigantic crash. Fortunately it fell in between the cars on my side of the road, merely bashing the side of a van on the other side with its tip. Everyone slammed on their brakes and got out, marveling at what had happened and how nobody had gotten hurt. People were on their phones to emergency services, and calling people to bring chainsaws in order to clear the road. I suggested that since there were a lot of us, maybe we could try pushing the tree to the side. We all got behind and shoved, and we managed to push it aside. I was at the end of the tree, and as I pushed it towards the side of the road I noticed that there was a sign for an organization whose headquarters were situated at precisely that spot: “Tree People.”

Back to the birds. Arriving in Sun Valley, I tracked down the address of the alleged dove supplier in a very unprepossessing industrial area. I found a shady-looking character there and asked him if he knew of someone selling doves. He grunted in the affirmative and pointed to a large bird cage, the door of which was open. "Great," I said, "I'd like to buy some from you." He replied that the doves had all flown out for the day and would only be back in the evening!

Driving back later was not an option, so I despairingly asked if he had anything at all to sell. He replied that he had two chicks, which he sold to me for a very steep price. I took them and drove them to a shochet in LA who was qualified to slaughter them, along with the other birds that I had purchased (whose identity I will keep secret for now).

The shochet, an older rabbi, was happy to see the fledglings - he explained that when he learned shechitah as a teenager in Iran, these were regarded as special delicacies. Since they are not yet able to fly, their muscles are underdeveloped and they are much tastier. He fondled the fledglings lovingly, and said to them, "Hello, nice little birdie, I'm sorry that I am going to shecht you." And then the deed was done.

Then there were some other challenges. For various reasons, I needed to figure out how to cut hard-boiled eggs in half without destroying the shell and in a way that the interior separates easily from the shell, such that the interior could be removed, tinkered with, replaced, and the eggshell put back together. After some research I discovered a way to do it, which involved buying certain gadgets and toiveling precision power tools which I’m pretty sure nobody has ever toiveled before!

There were a number of other halachic and culinary challenges that we had to figure out how to manage, but at last we’re on the home stretch. It was an exciting day in the kitchen with the three chefs and the mashgiach kashrus, with plenty more still to do before Tuesday’s event. A few seats are still available; you can book online at www.BiblicalFeast.org/LA. Meanwhile, our next such event in Israel will be held at the Biblical Museum of Natural History at the end of December, and at some point I will be publishing a book on this topic, Exotic Kosher Cuisine, featuring halachic discussion, cultural history, and recipes from the various chefs we have used. Bon appetit!