Who knows from this parve?

Parve. Merriam-Webster defines it as "made without milk, meat, or their derivatives." Meaning, it counts as neither meat -- a.k.a. fleishik -- or milk -- a.k.a. milchik. Parve is my best friend, the ultimate loophole.



So, OK, what's parve? There's the obvious: vegetables, fruit, grains (like pasta), juice, alcohol.

Then there are the foods that will trick you. The ones that, logically speaking, should be meat, but that are, in fact, parve: fish and eggs.


*Note: Mexican walking fish not actually kosher*

And then there ones that masquerade as milk, but that are parve, too: mayonnaise, margarine, all soy "milk" products, like yogurt, milk, and cheese.

The concept of parve is vital because anything that you make with parve ingredients can be served with either a meat OR a milk meal.

For instance:

• Mashed potatoes made with margarine - can be served alongside steak, brisket, roast chicken, etc
• Soy margarine or yogurt that takes the place of butter or buttermilk in baking, so you can serve cornbread (or whatever) with meat chili
• Dark chocolate (check to be sure). Melted, it can be mixed with parve margarine, flour and egg whites to make a delicious fondant - an amazing, loophole-to-end-all-loopholes dessert to follow a meat meal

Parve is generally denoted by a P on food products. If you don't care about the heksher, then check the ingredients yourself. Kind of amazing what you'll find -- like cochineal, a nice way of referring to the red bugs from whence red M&Ms get their color.