Whether it is for special dietary or religious reasons, finding the type of food you need can be difficult. With supermarkets stocking hundreds of different brands now it can be harder to find what you need if it isn’t labelled on the front of the packaging. Today, supermarkets and food stores sell more halal products and label it clearly, however, kosher food is much harder to find if you’re not sure where to look.
Victoria Felicity, chef and food blogger, is a modern Orthodox Jew and has found the best places to find kosher food. “Go down to one of the bigger shops on Golders Green road which is called Kosher Kingdom. Along that road there is several kosher bakeries and delis.” When slaughtering an animal, for it to be kosher, it has to be slaughtered by a Rabbi who has studied and been taught to do it correctly. “You can get kosher food in other shops, preferably in bigger shops, not in a small Tesco Express. If you go to a superstore like the Tescos in Hammersmith, you can find kosher products, if you look for them. There are particular kosher names or if you look on the back there is a kosher sign.”
Many brands that are popular in supermarkets are kosher friendly, such as Kingsmill bread, Lurpak, Ryvita and Nakd to name a few. “If you want a kosher restaurant, you need to go to a place which will usually have a health and safety sign on the door that states that the food is kosher. If you want somewhere that is quite local, Golders Green is the place to go.”
However, like gluten-free products and other special dietary foods, kosher products can be quite expensive. “It’s not that student friendly. Kosher products can be quite expensive. It’s mainly the meat products such as chicken and beef that is at a higher price range,” she says. Part of keeping kosher is not mixing meat and dairy products together as, Felicity says, ‘you don’t cook a kid in it’s mother’s milk.’ Kosher restaurants will either be milk based such as Isola Bella in Golders Green or meat based such as White House, which is also in Golders Green and Hendon. “Kosher bakeries such as Carmelli Bakery in Golders Green will have milk based products or parve products, which are made with margarine instead of butter.”
“Any kosher restaurant or business will be closed for Shabbat, which is Friday through to Saturday night,” she added.
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