Q: We are a Jewish vegetarian household. Our Chinese neighbours dropped by and presented us with a tray of handmade pork dumplings. We didn’t have the heart to tell them we can’t eat them. How do we break it to them gently that we don’t want more pork dumplings?
R.D., Roseville, NSW
A: Just so you know, I happen to be a member of the J.W.E.P (Jews Who Eat Pork), a small, progressive group who would order the pork dumplings at a yum cha restaurant, or buy shaved ham from the deli, or meet friends for brunch to eat bacon and eggs while chewing the fat. So personally I’d be thrilled if I got a tray of homemade pork dumplings from my neighbours, especially if they were smothered in oyster sauce, because I’m also a member of a smaller, more progressive group: the J.W.D.M.A.B.F.F.M (Jews Who Don’t Mind A Bivalve Filter-Feeding Mollusc).
But you’ve got a double-whammy thing going on. You’re Jewish and vegetarian, so you wouldn’t even want a neighbour presenting you with a tray of Jewish meat delicacies: maybe some boiled kishke, which is ground-up organ meat and rendered goose fat, stuffed inside a cow’s intestine, served in Jewish restaurants during a not-so-yum-cha sitting.
Read the article by Danny Katz in The Sydney Morning Herald.