How is this kosher?

Ema of 5

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 11:23 am

amother wrote:

Imasoftov, there is no labelling of any other fish, it just says kami. This shop is for charedi people it's not a rull of the mill kosher store. That's why I can't understand how it could be crab. I don't understand why not list all the products in it properly? What's the point of pretending it's kami? It also has nori whatever that means. We don't eat that anyway. It's like taking something and saying it's bacon. Also you are by law meant to list all that is in a product.

kani=crab. there are companies that make mock crab stick and sell them. this is what is used in kosher sushi. for example, the company dyna-sea sells sticks labeled as "crab flavored." people who regularly eat sushi know that when one of the listed ingredients is kani, it means mock kani. the point of pretending is so that people dont "feel" different for eating their kosher sushi. its a big fad, and jews dont want to be left out. its like bacon bits- they are obviously fake, but theyre still called bacon bits.

It also has nori whatever that means. We don't eat that anyway.
what does the bolded mean? please correct me if I misunderstood, but it seems as though youre saying you dont eat something, even though you dont know what it is. how can you know whether or not you eat something if you dont know what it is?

bubbebia

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 11:23 am

Don't panic. If you are really concerned, talk to the manager of the store and politely suggest that the label might be misleading to some people and maybe he could change the label so it says "mock crab" instead of whatever else he's labeling it. That way no one would be confused. And nori is dried seaweed that is used to wrap your sushi. It is a plant, air dried and completely kosher and edible. Without it your sushi would have no body and it wouldn't be able to be rolled. It is safe to eat.

oliveoil

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 11:36 am

http://www.mykoshermarket.com/......html

This is fake crab. It's a combination of fish and binding ingredients that is supposed to take like crab. This is what people use in kosher sushi and sushi salad. Very common. I'm sure that's what it is.

mille

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 3:21 pm

I'm wondering why you bought it if you didn't know what it was to begin with. Did it just look good?

It's fake crab. Not real crab. Kani in non-kosher restaurants almost 100% of the time STILL refers to mock crab, as very little sushi in my (copious amounts of non-kosher sushi eating) experience is REAL crab (and when it is, they call it real crab and it's expensive, or they use soft shell crab which is labeled as such and obvious it's real crab). That said, non-kosher places don't always have crab/shellfish-free mock crab, usually mock crab in the non-kosher world still has crab juice or something to give it more of a crabby flavor, but it's much much cheaper because the bulk of the flesh is pollock.

To avoid further confusion, surimi is shrimp, so if you encounter that word at the same place, it's the same exact product as the mock crab but in a shrimp shape.

Chana Miriam S

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 3:23 pm

amother wrote:

scrltfr wrote:

It's imitation crab. Totally kosher.

I see, well the ingredients do not say this!

Kani IS fake crab. Its even fake crab in non kosher restaurants.
Its just not kosher fake crab in non kosher restaurants. Surimi is made of pollock and is just as japanese as raw fish on rice.

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 3:24 pm

mille wrote:

I didn't look at the ingredients until I got home. Yes it looked good. When I wanted to find out what kani was it was to see what it was, not if it was kosher. The shop I bought it from is strictly kosher. I didn't know it would be something like crab. Of course now I know it's "imitation crab", whatever that is made of, although I still don't know why they call it crab, but whatever, it's in my tummy now.

Pita

Tue, Oct 29 2013, 6:47 pm

There is a fake crab made from whitefish. But the sushi chef probably used pre-printed labels, which would list the same ingredients he uses elsewhere.

I have seen the same thing, even "crab" listed on kosher menus. And I asked, and this is what I was told.

amother

Wed, Oct 30 2013, 12:51 am

The kosher restaurants are allowed to label food misleadingly according to the manager of Kosher Castle. I bought "yellow fin" sushi there when they sold sushi. I paid extra. It was not yellow fin Tina but regular tuna. I asked the manager who told me that they are allowed to label regular tuna as yellow fin. He explained it had something to do with the kashrus and there wasn't enough yellow fin yielded because of it.

I always am uncomfortable with deceptive practices whether allowed by kashrus laws or not.

imasoftov

Wed, Oct 30 2013, 3:21 am

chanamiriam wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surimi
if you click on this link, you will see that kani is another word for surimi, or mock crab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kani

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nori

That's the same page from which I learned that "Kani" is Japanese for crab. There are two consecutive lines

Kani (paste) (also known as Surimi), a food product made from fish
Kani (sushi), crab used as a sushi ingredient

I wouldn't be able to tell one from the other, so I'd ask rather than assume.

grace413

Wed, Oct 30 2013, 3:25 am

amother wrote:

This is disgusting. So if there isn't enough yellow fin and it's regular tuna, just say so. I cannot understand why this should be acceptable.

Ema of 5

Wed, Oct 30 2013, 3:32 am

scrltfr wrote:

amother wrote:

It's like taking something and saying it's bacon. Also you are by law meant to list all that is in a product.

Fyi bacon can be kosher. Its the way the meat is cured.

Actually, it's the same as in this case. Real bacon is made from pig and is not kosher. Other meats can be prepared in the same style to make in mutation bacon but can still be called bacon.