Should you have separate spices for milk and meat if you tend to shake the spices right into a pot, like a soup?

Some people do.

ETA: This is a response to post #2, which shouldn't be the first reply in a halacha thread, in general.

When discussed, the rbbi said NO. that you should buy the smallest amounts you can of spice and use them up quckly so bugs don’t form.

I would guess yes.

9

Yes, but I must admit I am often lax in this area....
But for stuff that goes on the table with the food and is handled with dirty hands I am more conscientious....

K-rebbe, it's more important that the outside of the container not mix milk and meat, than to worry about steam entering the spice container itself?

The steam issue is negligible even for those who hold it's a problem.

Stuff on the table often gets "dipped" in the food itself, dirty utensils are used in the jars, or shmutz from the hands gets deposited on the bottle.

So steam might be theoretically more problematic, but once something is on the table it is karov l'vadai that it will get dirty....

why is the steam issue negligable?
I figured it would be an issue, the spices would become meat or milk, or am I wrong?

the steam is definitely not negligible-it imparts taste to the other food (noten taam le'shvach), especially if it's yad soledes bo
hi ruthie

Dont you love shul kiddushim?
Hi mom!

ArtScroll's The Laws of Kashrus http://www.artscroll.com/Categories/kas.html says:

"Spice Shakers:
One must be concerned that steam from a cooking pot enters a spice shaker wile spices are being added to the pot. It may be advisable to use separate spice shakers for meat and dairy foods."

Well and good. Sounds like something advisable and laudable but not a slam dunk halachah that treifs up your kitchen otherwise. The nafka mina may be that you yourself may choose to use separate spice shakers [or to use separate measuring spoons and to pour the spice into the measuring spoon and from the measuring spoon into the soup; or if you are using a salt shaker, then pour some salt into your hand away from the soup, and from your hand into the soup], but when you go to peoples' houses [eg. Bubby Modern] and you see them not being makpid on separate salt shakers, it's not necessarily treif.

This comment in ArtScroll is based on a Badei Hashulchan [which, incidentally, is in my shul's beit hamidrash in the ezrat nashim; it's a light blue book], here in seif katan 165:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v336/mel...=spices0001.jpg

Sounds like a slam dunk but notice he says, "nir'eh" = it's logical to conclude that it's advisable, rather than "this is the halachah and anyone who doesn't is a sinner who eats and feeds his guests treif".

The reason it isn't a slam dunk is that:
1. If the steam isn't yad soledet bo by the time it gets up to the salt shaker holes, the problems are mitigated.
2. Anything that gets in to the spice is possibly batel be-shishim: Even if you dropped an actual drop of milk into the salt which then got absorbed into the salt and isn't noticeable, you could possibly still use that salt for meat soup, so a bit of steam is even less of a problem.
3. The Rama to YD 92:8 is predicated on a teshuvah of the Ro"sh who was discussing a utensil above an oven. If you have an oven where you are cooking meat, and you have a dairy utensil above it, it's problematic because of the rising steam. However, there are two ways of understanding the Ro"sh. If the Ro'sh was speaking of ovens in those days where the oven had a narrow opening on the top and the dairy utensil is occluding that narrow opening, then the steam has nowhere to go but into the dairy utensil.
However, if we are speaking of a stove top, with an open pot, and the steam escaping into the air, it's less problematic and not necessarily analogous to the case the Ro"sh was speaking of and which the Rama was basing his ruling on.
It's just like you can't cook meat and dairy in our ovens at the same time since the oven is enclosed and the steam from the meat and the dairy mix even if the pots don't actually touch each other. But cooking meat and dairy at the same time on the stove top is a different situation since the steam from each is going into the open air and it's far less problematic.

Well, the rabbi who gives our shiur doesn’t hold that way. He’s from OK labs.

He doesn't hold which way? He says you don't need separate spices if you're pouring directly from the spice jar into the hot soup, or you do?

Spontaneously?

Did you ask him about any difference l'chatchila & bediavad ?

Halachically, the problem with steam is that it connects, not that the molecules in gas form are actually meat/milk/treif. You can say reicha lav milsa, and you will be in good company.


The halachos of bittul are confusing.

yeah, but according to the Ram"a there, the issue is that even if the vapor from the oven isn't yad soledet bo when it reaches the dairy utensil that is hanging above the oven, you still need to wipe the dairy utensil clean before using it because of meat residue that will adhere. I'm not sure how you would clean off spices.

I guess, stuff flies up.

Remove the upper layer.

IIRC, he said that stem doesn’t matter, and that the spices should not sit around a warm kitchen OR in the freezer – both b/c of bug infestation.

Spices aren't a single mass like a piece of cheese or meat.

guessi can't bring anything home made to the next meet, eh ?

RH, you keep on mentioning meets..in fact you jump at every opportunity to do so.

I thought you had your reservations about meeting people you weren't on a first name basis with...

I'm ambivalent.

When I heard it from a rabbi, I had the same question... But perhaps only the pieces at the top get effected, or we can (rabbinically) assume that anything beyond the upper layer is uneffected.

ok, thanks.
However, when you shake spices over a soup and then turn the spice holder back right side up, all the spices get mixed up.

In this week's Dr. Jeffrey Gross article on torah.org, he discusses transeferring water from an urn to the chulent. He cites the same YD 92:8 and the Badei Hashulchan there that as long as you let the chulent steam dissipate and the urn is sufficiently away, it's basically ok.
Which speaks to the issues here, that the Rama is speaking of a confined space where it's problematic, which is not necessarily the same thing for spices which may possibly not be problematic.

[Mind you, I had some issues with Dr. Gross' lenient psak regarding spare buttons sewn to your shirt if there's no eiruv, although at least he said there's a stricter opinion in the footnotes...]

Larvae hatch within the spice bottle because the eggs are already there.
A hechsher is not a guarantee that the spices you buy are bug-free.
Jars of poppy seeds, cumin seeds, and the like often need to be discarded
after long term storage.

Are you implying that chazal were wrong when they talked about the spontaneous formation of lice, mice and other animals?

What's the connection? If there is no hot vapor connecting, then there is no question. The hava amina with the urn is, that there is a flow of hot water that can connect the urn to the chulent.



Reminds me of beholding spice containers at a certain store in Brooklyn that had about an equal proportion of bugs to spices in them. Literally hundreds and hundreds of bugs roaming around inside.

the first step would be just to show up

I don't know how to answer that. It appears to me that the issue of the stream of water connecting the pot of chulent to urn is not really a problem. Maybe we only assume steam rises, and meat along with that rising steam, but that steam can dissipate, and we don't assume any meat rises up the stream of water flowing down from the pot to the urn. But I'm speculating.

It's anyways a good idea to first pour the spice into your hand before putting into the pot. The steam coming up into the spice jar can make the spices moist and cause clumping.

I am completely convinced that ants show up spontaneously.

I always spice things when I put them up, before they boil.

ME TOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!