Monday, September 22, 2008

If We Can Keep Kosher Here...


"Just think, if we can keep kosher here we can keep kosher anywhere..." my husband (Nir) said this to me during our first week in Korea. We were living in a hotel without a kitchen while we searched for our new apartment and eating only kosher snicker bars and pringles. This may sound like a great excuse to indulge on junk but, trust me, it has been nearly 2 months since that first rough week and I still cannot bring myself to eat another snickers.

Before we arrived here Nir and I had romanticized the idea of keeping kosher in Korea. We'd buy only fresh veggies and fruit and would make food from scratch... and this is exactly what we are doing. But, romantic? No, it is work! The end result though is delicious and very rewarding to be sure. On Thursday night Nir and I didn't sleep as we worked in the kitchen side by side preparing food for our anticipated first Shabbat guests. The flour for the challah needed to be sifted beforehand and our little convection oven could only fit one loaf at a time. In Korea, people use gas burners and rarely have ovens in their home. Despite the prep time it was the best challah we had ever made. [Mom, take a look at our challot in the pic above and rest assured that we are NOT starving!]

But keeping kosher here reaches beyond just prep-time. Sometimes to find essential kosher ingredients we need to go to several different places - including the black market. Currently we have no meat but are able to find kosher milk at around $6 for half a gallon. Yikes! But what can we do, we must have milk for our daughter. Jokingly I told Nir that this experience here is making me rethink the value of food; I feel my life is some weird combination of Survivor (the tv series) and the experiences of those from the Great Depression. If you've ever cried from happiness because you've found Philadelphia cream cheese ($4 each package) you know what I'm talking about! Overall, it is hard to be kosher here but we are making it happen everyday and learning a lot from the experience.

Even so... the next time you chow down on a turkey sandwich or cheese pizza think of us and know that someone, far away, wishes they were eating your food :)

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Sarina,

I'm sure its a major challenge to keep Kosher in Korea. We have some friends here in Dushanbe who keep Kosher, but they have the added benefit of working for the US Embassy and shipping in lots of food. This might be a good reason to find some US military friends (think comissary). Good luck.

Perhaps I forgot this in my advice to you - food. When we go to the US, we have at least 3 empty suitcases and about 2 of them are food when we return. Cheerios, choc chips, vanilla extract, etc. etc. Look powdered milk for Ayalah - don't know about the kosher aspect, but you could probably order and ship it? look for full cream powdered milk, tastes great and its much easier for traveling. Umreen and Omar always drank it, no harm.

You'll figure it out!
Love,
Wendy

Rivka H. said...

Sarina - all I can say is WOW!! What mesiras nefesh. Is Chabad in Seoul - maybe they can help? Your challos are beautiful.
(re above comment I think most powdered milk is kosher :)
Love, the Howleys in MO

RivkaSarit said...

B'H, that you have the determination and fortitude to keep kosher in Korea! I did find a link for Chabad in Korea, they are in Seoul. I bet they could help with some food resources! http://www.jewish.kr/

Your Challot are beautiful, we haven't even attempted challah here & we are in the land of the plenty! We are very excited to learn there is a new kosher shushi restaurant here.. so while you are looking for something closer to home, we are looking forward to something more oriental - what a hoot! Shana Tova to you all!
Rivka

Wandering Ju said...

Hi Sarina,
I stumbled upon your blog from your comment on Here in Korea. I'm Korean and Orthodox Jewish. My Orthodox husband and I keep kosher and found out (as we predicted) that it's really difficult to keep kosher in Korea when we were there last week.
Maybe you know about the following information already, but I'm going to write them anyhow in case you don't.
We were at the Chabad rabbi's in Itaewon who told us that you can find many kosher products at Costco. According to him, they are planning to bring in a shchet in the near future once they feel there is enough demand. The rabbi's name is Litzman, and he responds to email whose address you can find on the Chabad's general website.
I didn't mean to be nosey. Hope the above info's helpful for you, if you didn't know it already.
Chag Sameiach.

a brainstormer said...

Thanks for these comments you guys! :) We are networking and through friends are sometimes able to get kosher meat. We are using carnation powdered milk whenever we cannot find real milk - right now the 'black market' doesn't have milk because the Korean won is so weak there is no profit in purchasing dairy products. The happy news is that I think Ayalah loves warm carnation milk more than warmed regular milk :) Chabad is in Seoul, they have been here about 6 months and are trying to bring a shochet soon! Sometimes Nir attends Shabbat services at Chabad but we do not go regularly because there is no Eruv and Ayalah is not yet able to walk the hilly path.

Happy New Year everyone!

Dana said...

Allo Sarina, Nir, Ayala...

We are living vicariously through your adventure. Keep the posts coming. As for staying kosher, you can do it! We did it in Alaska for years. It takes a huge amount of fortitude and sweat-equity, but can most certainly be done. I agree, you will never take kosher food for granted ever again. We never traveled without empty boxes to schlep back groceries as luggage. Our big advantage was that we had all the salmon we could catch, so when we didn't have a kosher chicken horded away, we could always have salmon.

SHanah Tova. May your year be one of blessing and health.

Dana, David, Divya, Ilan, EliNoam, and Raviv Horesh

Alan Levin said...

I love this post as I travel alot and I completely relate to the comment about staying in a hotel. I was thinking of visiting Seoul but it looks like I won't be, whew. Definitely a huge challenge to travel through a city with little access to kosher food. Sh'koach and b'hatzlacha.