When I was on summer break from college one year, I went to visit my friend Melissa on her family’s farm. It was more like a house in the country than an actual farm, acres of land with a big garden and some chickens and goats. They were celebrating her brother’s high school graduation with a big party. Her family was Filipino, and after the all-American meat-and-potatoes-and-frozen-vegetables-boiled-to-death diet I’d grown up on, their food seemed heavenly, other-wordly. They had a pig roasting on a spit, and I sat watching the golden carcass turn, mesmerized by the flickering flames. I had never seen anything like it. What I ate wasn’t pork as I knew it; it was some kind of delectable juicy treat, sprung from the soil of the earth, melting in my mouth. I’ve never eaten anything as blissful since. The incident popped into my head recently and I thought – That’s it! A pig roast wedding!
I know that I (and most Americans) eat too much meat. While our cave-dwelling ancestors were certainly carnivores, they were not wolfing down 16-ounce steaks at one sitting. I know that vegetables are a healthier choice, and I cringe at the numbers explaining how much water and power are used to create one pound of edible beef. I have cut back on my meat consumption, but I’m not able to give it up entirely. Steak is my favorite food … and pork, salami, turkey and chicken (dark meat and skin), ribs, roast beef, and any kind of hot dog or sausage. Especially sausage. Other people have weaknesses for chocolate, cheese, or fresh-baked bread – I crave meat fat. And I’m not too proud to eat it off other people’s plates. Maybe it’s something deep in my genetic makeup, inherited from my northern and eastern European ancestors’ needs to survive bitter winters and potato famines. Or maybe I have a nutritional deficiency.
At any rate, I’m not about to become a vegetarian. And as meat is my favorite food, it’s only natural that I would want it to figure prominently at my wedding reception. A pig roast opportunity has not presented itself in the 20-some years since my visit to Melissa’s; now certainly seems like as good a time as any. Neither of us particularly wanted a formal wedding; my fiancé had actually suggested a bonfire on the beach, which I think led me to barbecue and ultimately, pig roast. My family is huge – 70 people in my immediate family and extended family of aunts, uncles, and first cousins with spouses – and we still need room for his family and our friends. I would rather have a casual event so that we could invite more people and keep costs down. The problem? My fiancé is Jewish.
“YOU CANNOT HAVE A PIG ROAST WEDDING WHEN HIS FAMILY IS JEWISH!!!” Though my sister does tend towards the dramatic, I was a little shocked at her vehemence. I explained that my fiancé is a non-practicing Jew who does eat pork and that of course we would have other meat and vegetable dishes for any Jewish people or vegetarians who didn’t eat it. My sister and her fiancé Ron are vegetarian (Ron - seriously, she - less so). I explained that it didn’t really matter what food we had at the wedding; we would have to have food specially made for his brother’s family and any other Jewish guests who keep kosher, since they need everything cooked in separate, disposable containers.
“HIS BROTHER’S FAMILY CAN’T BE THERE IF A PIG IS ROASTING ON A SPIT!!!” They can’t be there? Because it would be upsetting? Because they aren’t allowed to be in the presence of a cooking pig? I don’t know whether she was being literal or metaphoric. I would love a spinning pig, Hawaiian luau-style, but I think they take up to 14 hours to cook. Most likely no one would see the pig cooking; it would be cut up, all ready to go, on a big serving platter. One friend told me she had heard of doing pig roasts in a pit, in which case there wouldn’t be much to see anyway. I don’t what the typical size of a pig roast pig is, but I’m guessing more than one would be needed for such a large group of people. Maybe a pit makes more sense.
“Well, I know Ron would have no desire to see a pig roasting on a spit.” She was calming down a little. I don’t have any particular desire to have my food served on plates after cats have jumped up and walked all over them, yet I accept that at her house. What I find repulsive, she does not, and when I’m at her house, at her invitation, I accept her parameters. Is it different at a wedding? Should I be concerned with the Jewish and vegetarian guests who might be offended by my choice of dinner and mode of preparing it? I know that it is impossible to please everyone, but should I try harder given that members of our immediate families may be upset?
I’ve spent the majority of my life denying my wants, giving in to others who asserted theirs at the expense of mine. I had buried my desires so deeply that I really thought I didn’t have any. I thought it genuinely didn’t matter to me where I went for vacation, what food I ate, where I went on Saturday night, what movie I saw – I was always fine with whatever the group or partner I was with wanted. It took some work to become conscious of myself again – to allow myself to feel. I know I have the right to want a pig roast wedding – but would I be asserting that right at the expense of others? Is that healthy, or is it selfish? Is it okay for two herbivores who wed to have a vegetarian reception without meat for the carnivores? Is it all right for two teetotalers who wed to have a dry reception without alcohol for the drinkers? When my sister gets married, she wants to have a swing band play, since she and Ron really enjoy ballroom dancing. Is that fair to the guests who don’t enjoy or don’t know how to dance along to swing music?
Should a wedding be the way the bride wants it? The way the family wants it? Ultimately, my fiancé and I will decide together, come to a decision that makes us both comfortable, with as little guilt as possible. I hope.
Or maybe we’ll just have separately worded invitations.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Catherine Forsythe
Maureenow
Moe Murph
Chris Brown (not the felon)
BuffyW
dynomyte
Salon.com
Comments
No, they were probably wolfing down woves and yaks. In one sitting, by the campfire. In loincloths made from last weeks meal.
chanel handbags
Thanks for the inspiration.
I thought Marion said it very well...
Two comments:
I think that non-Jews underestimate the symbolic impact of a roasting pig on a spit to even the most barely practicing Jew. As a mark of sensitivity, IMO, the bride should throttle back her lust for roast pig for a day; that will be appreciated forever by her Jewish guests who do care.
Second: Black Jack Davy was very simplistic and a little dismissive about the origin of the Dietary Laws which is much more complex than "very small information in Leviticus and an admonition not to eat ham." Like any other ritual founded in faith and belief, the detail and the adherence is the importance rather than the practical meaning of the act.
Lew
Content Comments: It's rather silly to make a point about pork at an interfaith wedding. The groom is already breaking Jewish law by marrying out of his faith, but we Jews are like that. We like to make it up as we go along.
The best pork in the world comes from Israel. Hand-fed. The Kobi beef of the pork world. In Israel, pork is called White Meat and many an incautious Jew visiting the holy land has ended up eating pork without realizing they've done it.
A few days before my wedding, I was in Chinatown in Boston, where I ran into the rabbi who was going to marry us, consuming a plate of spare ribs. He didn't bat an eye. I don't know which disturbed me most, the fact that he was eating pork or the fact that he was a vegetarian rabbi eating pork.
I had a vegetarian wedding. I don't know why we had a vegetarian wedding because neither of us were vegetarians....but I stopped at a deli on the way to the wedding and bought $300 worth of cold cuts, which I set up in the trunk of my car (suitably lined with aluminum foil; it was an outdoor wedding) so those guests who were creeped out by the vegetarian cuisine could find real food to eat.
Here's my take on the wedding: Keep the actual wedding kosher, because some of your fiance's relatives will be kosher - bet on it - and they will talk about the pig at your wedding for YEARS to come. Then, for your rehearsal dinner, go for it and have a picnic BBQ featuring your spitted pig.
Finally, let me tell you about a very kosher family I visited once. They had five sets of dishes in the house, as well as two refrigerators, two dish washers and two sinks. Get the idea? They also had michlic dishes (for non-meat meals) and fleshic dishes for meals with meat. They also passadic michlic dishes for milk meals during Passover and passadic fleshic dishes for meat meals during Passover.
I asked my host, a rabbi, what the fifth set of dishes (and dishes here includes separate sets of cookware and flatware) were for. He shrugged and said, "For traif, when we bring in Chinese take-out."
Here's my favorite stump the rabbi question: If thou shalt not boil the kid in the milk of the mother, how do you explain the prohibition against eating milk and chicken together (a pairing that Ethiopian Jews insists is all right) when chickens may have breasts but don't give milk.
Wow. This is pathological behavior. There really should be mental health counseling and treatment available for these poor people.
As long as you provide separately prepared food for people that need it, eat what you want on your day.
I wouldn't show a roasting pig to your new in-laws, but a plate on a table shouldn't be offensive as long as there are other choices available. I wouldn't want to make a bad impression with family members you may not see often...they will talk. Our relatives are Welsh and they talk about what this cousin wore or that cousin had to eat at the wedding!
Good luck with your special day!
The problem with this kind of thinking is that there is no "us" in this country. We are, in fact, a collection of "thems" since the American people are a congregation of people from different backgrounds, with their different religions and the practices stemming from those religions.
There's nothing pathological about following an ancient tradition. What is pathological is insisting that such behavior is pathological because it presumes a superior moral authority that does not exist because it cannot exist.
Moral authority comes from consensus. Absent consensus, there's no moral authority. There can be no consensus about this issue because you will not get agreement from the Jewish relatives that it is okay to insist that Jews tolerate the presence of pork at wedding feast. I believe a majority of non-Jews would agree with that statement.
Tolerance for different traditions is the hallmark of a mature society, or a mature individual. Intolerance is a proof of immaturity.
This is a non-sum ultra proposition. Some Jews cannot or will not eat pork. Christians can or cannot eat pork as they choose. Since a wedding is a joining of two families, the wedding feast should not exclude those who cannot or will not eat pork since the non-Jews can eat anything else and therefore the harmony of the wedding feast will be preserved.
When I eat with Muslim friends in my home, I do not serve alcoholic beverages, even though I know that Muslims are only prohibited from drinking the fermented fruit of the vine - wine - and are not restricted, technically speaking, from drinking hard liquor or beer. When I dine with them in their homes, and the happen to serve alcohol, as they often do, that's their prerogative.
When I dine with Christian friends, and they happen to serve pork, I will eat the pork because I am not opposed to pork eating as a rule and because, under Jewish law, it is a greater offense to refuse someone's hospitality than it is to break the laws of kasruth. My Christian friends, knowing that I have no compunctions about eating pork, have no compunctions about serving it.
Suggesting, however, that it is proper to demand that Jews ignore their dietary laws while attending a wedding ignores the very real history of antisemitism. One of the things the Nazis delighted in doing was to force Jewish prisoners to eat pork. Think about that.
Oh, grow up. It is not Anti-Semitic to believe that a thinking process which results in a person buying five different sets of dishes, two dishwashers and two refrigerators to keep some superstition-cooties apart is pathological. It's simply a rational conclusion. It may be a statement of animus against a pointless and harmful superstition, but the Jewishness of the issue is irrelevant. I would find the refusal to drink wine by a Muslim or the refusal to eat meat on a Lenten Friday by a Catholic to be equally pathological, as there is absolutely no rational basis for that action. That is ESPECIALLY so when one would insist on it at the risk of alienating a future daughter-in-law on what is supposed to be her special day.
Nor am I saying that "they" have to be like "us." If anything, it is the in-laws who appear to be insisting that the bride change to be more like the in-laws, not the other way around. The question isn't whether there should be non-pork there for those who don't eat pork. That is a given. The issue is whether guests with this superstition should be able to veto the desires of this bride to have the wedding that she wants, even if only through the moral suasion of a petulant refusal to accept the bride or attend the wedding if anyone there eats pork.
And no one here is saying "force the Jews to eat pork" so your Nazi strawman is b*llshit, intellectually lazy and rather bush-league. For myself, all I'm saying that those that don't dig the pig shouldn't take the pork from the fork of those that do.
The simple solution is that those who don't want to have pork have non-pork dishes, and they let the bride gets to have the wedding of her dreams, exactly as she wants it. Perfect solution; no one does anything they don't want to do and the bride gets what she wants. What the heck can be wrong with that?
"Here's my favorite stump the rabbi question: If thou shalt not boil the kid in the milk of the mother, how do you explain the prohibition against eating milk and chicken together (a pairing that Ethiopian Jews insists is all right) when chickens may have breasts but don't give milk."
Using the power the Torah gave them, ancient Rabbis extended the Biblical prohibition to include kosher bird meat, because they felt that someone not learned may look at someone eating chicken cordon bleu and assume that a Philly cheese steak would be OK.
Pork is no more not kosher than anything else. Kashrus is binary; it's either spiritually fit for Jews to eat, or not. That said, there are associations associated with pig meat in particular going back to Roman times that are uncomfortable for Jews, no matter how Observant they may or may not be.
Sorry sagemerlin, but that's not correct. You are supposed to refuse someone's hospitality if they serve you treif. Not that that's easy to do, but if you were wondering, that is the Law. FYI.
I used to get annoyed at my Mom for her crazy inconsistencies--i.e. happily eating shrimp on a tour of Chinatown but getting flustered and upset when a pork dish arrived at the table. Not being able to have what you truly want at your wedding may be annoying, but I think it's probably worth that sacrifice in order not to have a lot of people sniveling and/or giving you dark looks. I agree with other posters, this will play and play for years.
If the focus of your wedding refreshment is the roasting and consumption of the pig (which tends to be the case in luaus and other like events) do not be surprised if kosher guests leave early, even if other, less-exciting kosher options are provided.
And remember, although you and your fiance are the focus of the wedding, it is really about two entire families coming together, thus sensitivity to both of those families may be appropriate.