Shopping Kosher

Before the arrival of larger, ethnically sophisticated grocery stores in Austin such as Fiesta and Central Market, finding a substantial supply of kosher products, even around the Jewish holidays, required a sharp detective's eye. Occasionally, the shelves in Phoenicia deli promised some showing of kosher food among its few Israeli imports.

Interestingly enough, while the assimilation of bagels into the American diet finds different communities adopting this prominent staple of Jewish cuisine, Austin supports only one kosher bagel business -- The Bagelry. And while each of the Bagelry's five locations boast a kosher bakery, the deli's counter service is not kosher. Places like the Hot Jumbo Bagel on Fifth, which sports the inaccurate label "kosher" on its street sign, indicates the growing adoption of Jewish food by communities undemanding of official certification. Similarly, the "kosher style" menu at Katz's Deli & Bar sports all the fixins of a Jewish restaurant -- matzoh balls, reubens, latkes, blintzes, and nova lox -- but though the label kosher promises Katz's food some authenticity here too, the restaurant's kitchen and service is not set up to keep kosher. This deli does, however, provide food for which secular East Coast-to-Austin Jews often long -- fatty, mustard-drenched meats on rye.

As Austin's Jewish population continues to grow, so grows the demand for kosher butchers, delis, restaurants, and caterers. In my eagerness to shop strictly kosher, I discovered that Austin's Jewish community supports some interesting kosher food venues.

Randalls grocery on Balcones boasts Austin's only kosher bakery, and aims to offer different breads as fitting accompaniments to all kosher meals. Of their two ovens, the convection one is designated for pareve breads only (breads with neither dairy nor meat ingredients), so it cannot be used for meat or dairy products. Their conventional oven (best for baking sweets, such as pastry) is designated for strict dairy use. Other pareve and dairy equipment is separated in the kitchen as well. Despite the kitchen's large size, its equipment cannot accommodate meat ingredients in this same space. Some constraints on production in this kitchen, then, pertain to convection oven breads with cheese (such as jalapeño-cheddar bread) and baked goods with meat (such as sausage breads.) With this set up, Randalls must restrict its products to dairy sweet goods, such as croissant, and pareve breads, like challah and bagels.

Because most breads in Randalls' bakery were already produced with Kosher methods, their kitchen conversion to kosher production (started when this Randalls was Tom Thumb), did not alter many of their recipes. For many, any change in product selection is well worth the certification that this bakery guarantees.

The Austin Kosher Co-op (918-1270), Andrea Herrera's voluntarily run kosher meat distributing service, has provided Austin households with specially-ordered cuts of glatt kosher meat for years. The pre-cut to order, quick frozen meat arrives direct from a Los Angeles butcher to an in-town meat market for holding and pick up. The co-op, now about 75 families strong, arranges such shipments every six weeks, when Andrea sends out a self-designed newsletter and order forms to its members. In the absence of a local kosher butcher, responsible for overseeing the preparation of kosher meat, the co-op sustains the Austin community of Kosher carnivores.

-- R.W.