Fresh Pasta - Why Does It Require Mehadrin Kosher Certification?

Every summer, and before each vacation, booklets or information leaflets are published guiding the kosher-observant traveler, traveling somewhere in Europe or in any country around the world, on how they can consume kosher food without starving. These publications contain quite important information: where to find kosher restaurants and bakeries, and perhaps even those under the mehadrin category. There is also guidance on which supermarkets offer kosher bread, and so on. However, there is also emphasis on various products that can be consumed even without kosher certification. For example, in one information leaflet, a long list of noodles was provided that could be purchased without kosher certification...

And interestingly, what is their source?

Even if we try to address whether such a possibility exists, that noodles could be kosher without strict kosher supervision, it's worth noting that this certainly doesn't refer to noodles found in our country that contain eggs. Besides the fact that it's not at all certain these eggs haven't been left overnight, or that they don't contain various additives and unknown ingredients, in many countries around the world there is a serious problem with eggs containing blood - and not just any blood, but blood forbidden because these eggs were produced from male reproduction, where the prohibition of blood is not only due to appearance.

Therefore, if we want to be specific, it certainly doesn't refer to noodles found in Israel, as they mostly contain eggs. It's more likely they were referring to some type from the "pasta-spaghetti" family, which includes more than three hundred possibilities and types. It's worth emphasizing that even within pasta itself, there are two families. The first is "dry pasta," which originally is made only from flour and water, and the second is called "fresh pasta," from which ravioli, lasagna, and other varieties with names that are a bit difficult to pronounce are usually made. Unlike dry pasta, fresh pasta contains eggs, which are also the main factor in the pasta's color - pasta made with eggs that have orange yolks will be more orange, compared to pasta made with eggs of a yellowish hue.

Besides the issue with eggs, there are several other serious kashrut problems that exist even here in factories in Israel. For example, most fresh pasta undergoes a kind of pasteurization and cooling. Pasteurization keeps the pasta fresh and juicy, and even ready to eat with a light boil, thus almost all types of pasta, especially ravioli, are edible immediately after pasteurization. If so, one needs to clarify and check who put the pasta into the pasteurizer - was it a Jew? It's true that many kosher certifying bodies don't enforce that only a Jew should put the ravioli into the pasteurizer, either because they rely on the Rama's opinion, who was lenient regarding bishul akum (food cooked by non-Jews) that it's sufficient if a Jew lit the fire, or because they rely on those who are lenient that there is no prohibition of bishul akum in cooking done with steam. However, in kosher certification that adheres to the rulings of Maran HaShulchan Aruch, as is customary in the Badatz Beit Yosef, there is insistence that only a Jew should put pasta into the pasteurizer, even though there is room for leniency in cooking done with steam.

For your information, the pasteurization machine operating with steam vapor is connected to the general steam system of the factory, and if so, it's possible that the innocent spaghetti will be dairy, or have the taste of cheeses whose kashrut is in doubt, just because other types of pasta or ravioli are produced within the factory...

It's also worth knowing a bit about the production process of fresh pasta. If we try to summarize, there are kneading machines with an extruder head at the bottom (resembling the head of a meat grinder), and from this exit comes a kind of long sheet of dough. The dough sheet is rolled into a large coil, and from a distance, it looks like a rolled coil of cardboard paper. The coil is placed on a machine that takes the dough sheet, cuts it, and shapes it into various forms. Of course, after cutting the dough, many remnants remain, just like remnants remain after we've taken a sheet of paper, drawn various shapes on it with a stencil, and then cut it out. So... where do all these massive quantities of dough remnants go - to the trash? Certainly not. They are recycled back into the kneading machines, and if so, imagine, after remnants of dough from the ravioli machine, which also cuts and injects cheese filling into the dough, are left, they take the remnants, which certainly have cheese on them, and recycle them for the next production, which is spaghetti or pasta, and if so, the pasta or spaghetti will be genuinely dairy...

By the way, the fact that dough remnants are constantly recycled creates a rather complex question: how does one separate challah from the dough? Dough intended only for cooking is not obligated in challah separation and certainly not with a blessing, and all that the stringent separate challah without a blessing from pasta dough intended for cooking, is only to account for opinions that even dough intended for cooking is obligated in separation because it is made in the way of hard dough that is not liquid. On the other hand, there are types of pasta dough intended for the production of lasagna, which is indeed obligated in challah separation, since often lasagna is not cooked but baked in an oven, and therefore it is obligated in challah separation. And if indeed so, the recycling phenomenon creates a question, for we have a rule that "one who makes dough with the intention to cook it and the like, if at the time of rolling he also intended to bake a little of it, and did so, and baked a little of it - even if that little doesn't have the measure of challah, he is obligated to separate challah with a blessing from the entire dough." Since often, dough coils are prepared for the production of pasta for cooking, and the remainder of the coil as well as the remnants of the processed dough from it are transferred to the lasagna production machine, it's possible that the pasta will also be obligated in challah separation, because dough was made with the intention that a little would be taken from it for baking. And unfortunately, not everyone is aware of the problem, and not everyone separates challah from pasta dough...

And if we return to the introduction, and try to think which pasta they meant, we'll need to conclude that they certainly didn't mean colored pasta, because for example, black pasta without kosher certification is mostly made from squid ink (sepia), and similarly, green pasta made from spinach leaves and the like without supervision, with additives of food coloring and flavoring... So certainly their intention was dry pasta, which we'll need to elaborate on, God willing, next time.