Shavuot. Still the Festival of Moo?

I’ve never especially liked cheesecake. It’s nice enough but I don’t really get the whole obsessive thing. Maybe it’s coz I’m half Yemenite and this stuff just isn’t fully in my blood, I don’t know. Since I got married I have been making a very simple, not too sweet, traditional one for husband (no frills, he’s not into berries) with sour cream (cheers Evelyn) and this coupled with a very nice onion tart (cheers Claudia) have become our Shavuot staples. I never did more than that because my stomach couldn’t handle it. My theory is – only hardcore Ashkenazim can eat that stuff more than once a day and still be able to carry on normal daily life.

Not this year though.

I love tradition as much as the next person, but just as I managed to turn Pesach into a healthy festival, (we lived off kitniyot and veg), I plan to do the same for Shavuot. I am not sure where this notion of animal misery became interspersed with Jewish Law. Truthfully, I am not an animal activist, I don’t feel an intense sadness when I think of them dying, I just can’t bear the thought of them dying for somebody to halfheartedly eat cheaply prepared meat and not even recognise that it’s meat, plus I think we could all do with eating less of it… but I digress. So in short, put in language resonant of the last major festivals guide book; “On all other festivals we slaughter an animal, on this one, we ask for a donation.” In other words, we have replaced slaughter with milk donation. It’s not looking good, is it?

Until I came to this country, I knew very little about the dairy industry. A new wave of health -conscious blogs coupled with a lot of trendy vegan cookery sites has pushed me to look into it, and I was pretty depressed with what I came up with. Aside from that, a few months after we got here, I was visiting a kibbutz refet (cow shed – if you ever want to be put off milk, just pop along to one of those, Israeli ones more than any) when I came across a teeny tiny calf all alone in a pen. “He’s so sweet!” I told our cousin. “Why is he on a bottle?” Then the truth came. They take them away from their mothers after ONE DAY, and stick them on a bottle. So we can have the milk.

This had never dawned on me. I never realised the process involved. I can’t feel bad about slaughter, I grew up eating meat and (although I think its unsustainable and unhealthy for us all to eat lots of meat and I wholeheartedly believe in free-range eggs and chickens-without-injections), I would be lying if i told you I cry for the plight of cows. I just don’t. But this information did upset me, and seeing as I had a small baby at the time, I responded in the only way my body knew how. MEN: STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT GIRLS STUFF.

My breasts filled up. Yep girls, they filled up in that way they do When It’s Time, or when the baby is crying about something. Or, for us really sensitive ones, when we see a picture of the baby… Ow. So I suppose that was me feeling bad for cows, if only the baby ones…

Of course, like most human beings, I put the thought to the back of my mind. I am a bake-off fanatic. I adore Ruby Tandoh and her dairy bakes (and no I don’t bloody care what team she bats for, she’s a goddess). I also love to bake with butter. I don’t do marge. Home-made pizza is a fairly regular Thursday night feature. I love making tarts with cream, my kids love custard with their apple crumble (mmmm) and who doesn’t love sour cream?? So I conveniently forgot about it, in the same way I don’t think about cows on those rare (but treasured) occasions when I eat steak.

The thing is, it keeps coming back to bite me. The truth is the stuff doesn’t really agree with me, if I’m honest, and although I have previously touted the health benefits of dairy to my kids, my more recent research (unfortunately) revealed the opposite. This was a huge blow to me, as my older son is pretty much a herbivore, isn’t particularly keen on eggs, so add this one into the pot and you are left with a 6 year old boy who is basically a honey-eating vegan. This has taken me a long time to digest (literally) and as a person who prides herself on non-extremism, by no means the obvious path. But here we are.

And another thing. I have never read any convincing arguments for eating dairy on Shavuot. This whole religious lark about how we have to eat dairy on Shavuot because the Jewish people hadn’t received the laws of basar vechalav (meat & milk) so we eat… milk? Er no, that doesnt follow. The logical conclusion there would be – we haven’t received the laws of meat & milk so lets eat neither. Lets make this HARVEST festival the festival of grains and veggies. Sounds logical to me .

But no. No NO. That would never work. That would be like re-introducing kitnoyot-on-Pesach into the Ashkenazi community, thereby forcing them to forego meat and potatoes, and god knows what else they eat in favour of – shock – HEALTHY FOOD! That would never slide.

Yes I know there are other brilliantly crafted excuses for eating cheesecake. How about the one about Torah being like milk & honey? I’m guessing there were no refets around back then. And I dont think Bee honey was the prevalent honey either. So that means we should be eating either goats milk and silan (date honey) or, sorry guys, more girly talk here, silan and er, breastmilk. Since, like Torah, a baby can’t survive without it. Unless it’s 2015 in Israel, where sales of Similac formula are forever on the rise. Another depressing thought – but great for the dairy industry!

Here’s another fabulous argument. We should eat dairy products because its easier to digest than meat, so we can stay up all night and learn Torah! Whoever wrote that one was 100% Ashkenazi I can tell you. They’ve certainly never spent an afternoon with a Yemenite after mac n cheese. And haven’t they ever heard of that old wives tale not to eat cheese last thing at night… because its hard to digest??!

Oh, and only Ashkenazi cultures have a custom to eat dairy, which also makes me deeply suspicious about how Torah-related this custom really is…

Call me a heretic, (no really, you can, that’s what the comment box below is for…) but I just don’t buy it. I don’t believe this is yet another festival based on animal sacrifice. Over Pesach I was shocked and horrified to hear what people were eating and feeding their children in order to fully comply with Jewish law. Ok, I reasoned. its just 7 (or 8) days. But now we have another chag… and it just goes on. I’ve been a milk-donor for over 6 six years now. But I donate to my KIDS. So I get to watch them thrive off it. I’m not sure I would be so willing if I never saw them.

Jewish Law is supposed to be dynamic. Minhagim (customs) even more so, as they reflect the historical and geographical situations of our people. Well, our people are blessed enough to live (mostly) in lands where we have CHOICES. If you are reading this blog then you most likely have a choice of what you eat. We can eat foods from all around the world. Foods that are healthy. Foods that are not. Foods that cause animal suffering, foods that do not. Foods that detract from environmental sustainability, and foods that do not. As a modern day Israeli, with the opportunity to purchase food mindfully, I choose to start a new minhag. And it has a strapline too:

Shavuot, the festival of Parev.

That’s it folks.

Vegan cheesecake anyone?

If you would like to see my Shavuot menu, just let me know and i’ll post it. I am always happy to talk food….

Please note, since the time of writing, it has transpired that Husband, upon learning of my vegan shavuot intentions, raided the fridge at work and ate 5 slices of (real) cheesecake. God bless him.