By Ira Stoll
Just days after touting Senator Charles Schumer’s “compelling” recipe for a pork-based meatloaf, the New York Times is at it again, pushing pig meat on its readers by blessing it, improbably, with a vaguely Brooklyn Jewish aura.
This time around, the hard sell comes in the Times travel section, which features a long article with a recommended itinerary for “36 Hours” in Brooklyn, New York.
Leave aside the peculiarity of a newspaper called the New York Times treating New York City itself as a topic for its “travel” section, rather than, say, its local news section, which has been reduced to nearly the point of elimination. The fourth stop on the Times travel section tour of Brooklyn says, “Go for a Spanish-style late dinner at La Vara. In New York City, it’s wise to seek out meals so exceptional you’re unlikely to find anything like them anywhere else.” That imperative mood — the Times ordering its readers around — occurs rarely in the newspaper. When it does, pay close attention. When reading the New York Times, it’s wise to seek out paragraphs so exceptional you’re unlikely to find anything like them anywhere else.
The Times reports:
On an unassuming residential block in brownstone Cobble Hill, a husband-wife team, Eder Montero and Alex Raij, serve regional cuisine that celebrates two cultural and historical influences in Spain: the Jewish and Muslim North African influences of the Moors. Dishes include such offerings as pincho de ceuta (grilled chicken hearts with a salad of fresh herbs and lime-date vinaigrette, $13) and crispy suckling pig, slow-cooked with a rose petal-quince sauce and chimichurri ($30).
How does it celebrate “Jewish and Muslim” influences to eat a “crispy suckling pig,” a food that violates the religious dietary laws of both Judaism and Islam? That is a question left unasked and unanswered by the Times. It’s as if the newspaper’s editors are unaware that Judaism and Islam forbid the consumption of pork, or as if they can’t imagine that any of their readers might take the prohibition seriously.
(c) 2017 The Algemeiner Journal
{Matzav.com}
Oy Geferlach! I was about to go eat the suckling pig since the times said it was ok
Thanks you Matzav for preventing this terrible terrible michshal
Letoeles Harabim please pin this importnant story to your banner
Lol. You are %100 right. You hit the nail on the head.
Why in the world are you reporting
This!!!!!
Influance not eating! We jews influance many things. But we don’t necessary use them.
I just want to mention that my dog refuses to use the NYTimes when it has to go. It says it is below it to use such low paper….
Your Dogglah is smarter then some people
You people at Matzav are sick!!! SICK!!!
It is always wise to “know thine enemies”. Get your head out of the sand.
There’s a Jewish connection to the above mentioned dish: during the Inquisition, eating it would be “proof” that one was a (New) Christian, and this was possibly recorded in historical works. It probably didn’t happen during the early years after the expulsion, but in later years (the expulsion was in affect for hundreds of years!), when our people were unfortunately largely ignorant of Halachah, but still under suspicion, they could have eaten it. Far enough away that they weren’t repulsed by it but still having to “prove” themselves.