What makes meat kosher?

The animal

Land animals must both chew the cud and have split hooves (Leviticus 11:3) – cattle, sheep, goats and deer, but not pigs, camels or rabbits. Birds are kosher by tradition: chicken, turkey, duck and goose are accepted, birds of prey are not. Fish need fins and scales and require no slaughter.

Shechitah

“You shall slaughter of your cattle and of your sheep… as I have commanded you” (Deuteronomy 12:21) – the sages understood that the method was given orally. The shochet, a God-fearing person trained and certified, cuts the windpipe and gullet with an extremely sharp, perfectly smooth knife in one quick motion. Pausing, pressing, or a nick in the blade make the animal non-kosher (neveilah). The knife is checked before and after each slaughter.

Checking and preparing

After slaughter the lungs and other organs are checked for defects that would make it a treifah; meat with smooth lungs is called glatt. Certain fats (chelev) and the sciatic nerve (gid hanasheh, Genesis 32:33) are removed; because removing them from the hindquarters is laborious, outside Israel the hindquarters are usually sold to the general market. Finally the meat is soaked, salted and rinsed to remove blood, which the Torah forbids.

Buying kosher meat

In practice, buy meat with a reliable certification, from a kosher butcher or packaged with a seal. Most kosher meat is sold already salted. Sephardim often look for “Beit Yosef” meat, following the stricter standard of the Shulchan Aruch on lung adhesions.