There were no empty tables at the Eucalyptus restaurant at Jerusalem's Safra Square last Thursday evening. Despite the crowd, a place of honor was reserved for a glass cage full of grasshoppers, who could look out on their friends being served for dessert. The dinner was a special meal of foods that rarely appear on the menus of kosher restaurants, despite being 100 percent kosher.
The meal at the Eucalyptus represented the culmination of 20 years of study by Dr. Ari Greenspan, a dentist from Efrat, and Dr. Ari Zivotofsky, a brain expert from Bar-Ilan University. The two men came from the United States 20 years ago to study at the Har Etzion yeshiva in Alon Shvut. They decided not only to focus on their Talmudic studies, but also to do a practical course on ritual slaughter. "This started when a friend of ours, from a newly religious family, asked whether we could slaughter a pheasant because her family really liked to eat pheasants before they became religious," Zivotofsky recalls. "But we didn't find anyone who could teach us how to slaughter them."
Despite indications in halakha (Jewish law) that various animals are kosher, the laws of ritual slaughter are actually based on traditions passed down from one generation to the next. For hundreds of years, in Jewish communities throughout the world, the laws pertaining to the ritual slaughter of dozens of types of birds and beasts were known, but during the past 50 years, the range of offerings by the slaughterhouses in Israel has shrunk.
Greenspan and Zivotofsky solved the problem of slaughtering pheasants with the assistance of Rabbi Yosef Kapach from Jerusalem, who was considered the most senior Yemenite rabbi. Kapach, who died two years ago, brought with him the tradition of ritual slaughterers from Yemen, who were experienced with pheasants. "We understood that these elderly ritual slaughterers would soon pass away, taking their traditions with them," Zivotofsky says. And so, over the course of the years, the two traveled throughout Israel seeking out ritual slaughterers who could teach them the traditions of killing various animals. They documented the details of these religious laws and videotaped the process of ritual slaughter in order to preserve the traditions for future generations.
"It's easy to see this simply as an orgy of food," Greenspan explains, "but besides the fact that it's important to us that people eat pheasants, it's important to us that the ancient traditions of ritual slaughter from places like Yemen, Algeria and Eastern Europe be preserved."
The two men called the meal at the Eucalyptus a "halakhic meal" and the menu included all types of kosher animals that can be ritually slaughtered in Israel. In addition to the standard fare - chicken, turkey, beef, goat and sheep - four types of ducks and geese were served, as well as pheasant, quail, guinea hen, sparrow, two types of water buffalo, deer, and partridge. The first course consisted of pheasant and partridge in cinnamon, and dove and pigeon soup. The main course was half a quail with guinea hen on a bed of roasted wheat kernels, a complete deer stuffed with rice and raisins, and dumplings of buffalo and water buffalo in okra sauce. The two men received special permission from the Nature Reserves Authority to hunt five partridges, but they were not allowed to hunt gazelles - which were eaten in Yemen.
Another biblical animal was served for dessert - the grasshopper. While Jewish law permits the eating of grasshopper, it was only done in Yemen and some Moroccan communities. In order to identify the kosher variety, Greenspan and Zivotofsky were assisted by several families who came to Israel from Yemen. One of these families also taught them how to cook the grasshoppers.
The ritual slaughter was performed in slaughterhouses under veterinarian supervision and the dishes were prepared by the chef, Moshe Basson. Between courses, rabbis and researchers lectured on Jewish laws pertaining to kashrut and the treatment of animals. Chef Basson, who specializes in Jerusalem and Israeli food, said, "I've always wanted to cook all of the animals that appear in the Bible, but I couldn't get them." Though it was his first experience with grasshoppers, he said, "The cooking is very similar to that of shrimps or lobster: You thrown them live into boiling water, and when you take them out, you can prepare them in lots of ways. I was surprised to find lots of recipes on the Internet." Basson added that he would be happy to make grasshoppers a regular feature on the restaurant's menu.
