Day 65 - McKosher

Many years ago, my travels took me through England & Scotland for two weeks. On the very last day, I began craving food from home.  So my very last supper in London was at Pizza Hut, where I displayed my boorish American tendencies by eating a slice of pizza with my hands.  The refined British that surrounded me were using knives and forks!

Anyway, today I got to think about what American restaurant chains I might stumble upon in Israel.  McDonalds is one of them and I was surprised to learn that several of them are "kosher".  In Judaism, keeping Kosher is a very big deal to Orthodox (and even to some Conservative & Reform) Jews.  While there are volumes written information on all the rules and regulations - the basics come down to this:

• No mixing meat & dairy
• Permitted animals (beef, chicken, lamb, etc.) must be killed according to Jewish law
• No shellfish
• No pork

So when you visit a kosher McDonalds, the first thing that comes to mind is what about the "Quarter Pounder with Cheese"?  Well, obviously you are not going to find that there.  Yep, cheeseburgers are not kosher.  From what I understand, they don't serve any cheese at the kosher McDonald's in Israel.  While they do have some dairy products (like ice cream & milk shakes) they are served in totally separate areas.

One thing I also learned about the McDonalds restaurants in Israel is that the many of them have menus only in Hebrew.  Which I thought was kind of strange considering it's an American chain.  Oh well, I guess if anything, non-Hebrew customers can at least place their orders by pointing to what they want. 

Since I don't follow the rules of kashrut (i.e. keep kosher), I will probably just end up visiting one of the non-kosher McDonalds in Israel.  To me, McD's Quarter Pounder would just seem naked without the cheese!  Of course, if I was able to have my dream American meal in Israel - I would stumble upon an In N Out Burger.  Yum! Yum!