post-baitcon feedback

[quietann.livejournal.com]

My personal issues with baitcon are in my personal journal; however, there are a few things that IMHO need to change:

• Separate dishes/mixing equipment/etc. for any ice cream product containing meat. There are a lot of people involved who nominally keep kosher, and it's discomfiting to know that one's ice cream might have been prepared using the same equipment as, say, the chicken liver ice cream. (for that matter, I'd just ban meat-containing flavors entirely, but that's not my decision to make.)
  
• More whole wheat (not just wheat, whole wheat) bread, less white bread. We ran out of whole wheat by lunch on Saturday. (this suggestion passed on from Gregorian, who was amazingly polite about it, but still really would have preferred whole wheat bread for his peanut butter sandwich...)
  
• More tarpage for shade protection (may not be an issue if baitcon isn't at Mink Hollow anymore, but...)
  
• Re-reinforcement of the "modest dress" (ahem) requirement in and around the main area. There was one person in particular who seriously violated this. (insert serious snarkage here; I am trying to be polite.) Dancing naked in the rain, as usual, should be granted leniency.
  

Comments

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Separate dishes/mixing equipment/etc. for any ice cream product containing meat. There are a lot of people involved who nominally keep kosher, and it's discomfiting to know that one's ice cream might have been prepared using the same equipment as, say, the chicken liver ice cream. (for that matter, I'd just ban meat-containing flavors entirely, but that's not my decision to make.)

How is this different from knowing that your ice cream may have been prepared with the same equipment that made the breakfast sausages or the ground beef? Which, I would wager money on, happened -- probably a lot.

If having the equipment washed off and disinfected between uses isn't enough to satisfy 'nominal' kashrut, you're probably not going find much if any of the food edible. Baitcon's kitchen isn't likely to get a heckscher anytime soon.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

see Ben's reply below; he expands on the issue. I actually don't observe the milk-meat separation at all strictly, so it's not really my issue...

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Er, no offense, but no, he doesn't. I asked a question: "How is this different from knowing that your ice cream may have been prepared with the same equipment that made the breakfast sausages or the ground beef?" Ben puts in another datapoint (that a friend of his can't attend because of the meat ice creams), but that doesn't answer the question.

All of the BC ice creams are prepared with equipment that probably fail even the most casual of kosher standards. The meat ice creams only highlight the issue. If there's a need for guaranteed-kosher food at baitcon, maybe someone should volunteer to coordinate a kosher kitchen or freezing station?

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

(er, for "can't", substitute "won't", above.)

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

All of the BC ice creams are prepared with equipment that probably fail even the most casual of kosher standards.

It wouldn't make a difference even if we *had* a certified Glatt Kosher to work with. We freeze almost all of the ice cream between friday night and saturday night. Game Over. It's all treif.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Argh.
I think we've really gone donwn a rabbit hole, here.

Kosher/nonkosher is a red herring, as dr_memory has pointed out. It started as a nice thing to hang a concept of cross contamination on, but has stopped serving its purpose.

Even at Baitcon, icecreams very rarely have meat.

Unlike those who do not do spice or those who are allergic to [foo] there is a not insignificantly sized group of people who either 1) do not do meat or 2) do not do meat with milk.

A subset of those people would consider inedible any icecream that had had some of the meat ice cream get on it.

Given that the making equipment gets well cleaned between batches the only remaining problem becomes how to not get ingredient A onto icecreams that are not-A.

I don't think that separating out the few meat ice creams onto a subtable and giving them their own scoop is really such a big deal.


A side issue is labeling, and another side issue is potentially moving non-dairy concoctions such that they can remain milk-free.

But it's really a question of ingredient transfer rather than kashrut.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Okay.
What if instead of it being posed as quietann did it was instead brought up as "hey, we've got a not insignificant number of vegetarians who might prefer not to be accidentally eating meat.* How about we try to figure out a way not to have the meat ice creams get into the more traditional nonmeat ice creams? While we're at it, there are some people highly sensitive to milk; lets give some thought to how not to get milk into the vegan ice creams."

I have real life examples of both cases: dglenn didn't hear the "prosciutto" in the Gorganzola Prosciutto Balsamic Fig, and found out with a spoon of it en route to mouth. tikvah ate some ice cream mislabeled as milk free when it was not, and was ill most of Saturday night.


* And in fact several vegetarians commented in either this or the other post that they would in fact like some separation; we did at least used to have an ingredient-kosher/shomer shabbes contingent.

[gingicat]

I think that asking for the level of care that, say, a Chinese restaurant has for ensuring that dishes are clean before use is not a problem. People are very good about washing and disinfecting things at Baitcon (I wasn't able to attend this year due to pregnancy, but I try to take at least one turn at dishwashing every time I'm able to come).

The issue is things that can't be washed easily, or can't be washed right away. You mention rinsing the scoops below; how many times has that same water been used? The water has meat in it after the very first rinse and therefore isn't useful for rinsing the scoop thereafter.

Keeping the meat ice creams on a separate table would be a very simple way to ensure that the scoops used for the meat ice creams don't contaminate the other ones. Keeping the sorbets separate would help the vegans keep milk and eggs out of their sorbet. And so on.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I think that asking for the level of care that, say, a Chinese restaurant has for ensuring that dishes are clean before use is not a problem. People are very good about washing and disinfecting things at Baitcon (I wasn't able to attend this year due to pregnancy, but I try to take at least one turn at dishwashing every time I'm able to come).

Agreed, and I believe that this is basically the status quo right now.

The issue is things that can't be washed easily, or can't be washed right away. The water has meat in it after the very first rinse and therefore isn't useful for rinsing the scoop thereafter.

Isn't useful to who? I'm not getting a good sense of scale match between the size of the group of people having problems (so far two attendees and one non-attendee due to kashrut issues, and an unknown number of hypothetical vegetarians) and the proposed solutions (seperate table for meat ice creams; banning meat ice creams) here. If it's just a handful of people, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that bringing your own scoop is a simple and effective solution. If it's more than a handful, it's time for one or more of them to step up and volunteer to handle the extra organizing that a large solution will entail.

[gingicat]

Well, I can think of at least six people offhand (including myself and my husband, who admittedly haven't been in a while) who keep meat-milk separation in some fashion but are okay with eating Baitcon food.

I can think of at least two vegans who have attended past Baitcons but weren't at this one.

So yes, it's a small sample size, but it's the sort of thing I did automatically for people long before I kept meat-milk separation rules myself. Consider it akin to making sure the person allergic to mushrooms doesn't get anything that touches the mushrooms. There may be only one person with that allergy, but making sure zie doesn't go into anaphylactic shock is still well worth the effort. Kashrut and veganism are conscious choices, but no less mentally important to the people who practice them.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

:smile:
I suppose the question also becomes "just how many meat ice creams are we expecting?" If the answer is less than maybe 6, they'd all fit on one of the port-a-tables some people bring to keep in a large tent.

Thing is, for anyone who would prefer to not even accidentally eat meat, bringing their own scoop isn't really a solution. Scoops don't get washed off all the way and sometimes scoops don't get washed off at all between flavours.

If I can make it to next Baitcon I'd be happy to spend some time attempting to acquire a few brightly coloured scoops-for-a-meat-area should it seem necessary.

Or, honestly, it would likely be sufficient to put a band of red duct tape around the pack tubs of the few meat flavours then group them together at serving (I mean, hell, we only had two this year) and add a band of red duct tape around an associated scoop or two. Nobody who has issues with meat accidentally serves hirself any nor worries that the meat's gotten onto whatever sie is eating.

The freeze bucket and stirrer get washed/disinfected anyway.

If the forces that be [hopefully] make there be a next year's Baitcon that I can attend I'll be happy to tote some coloured duct tape and extra scoops.

vegetarian datapoint

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd really prefer not to use the same scooper in non-meat ice cream after it was used in meat ice cream, unless it was thoroughly washed, not just rinsed.

The number of meat ice creams was small enough that they could easily have been set off to the side with their own spoon or scooper. If people are going to continue to make meat ice creams, I would prefer them to be set apart like this. It's not a whole lot of effort, really.

[larksdream]

As a hypothetical vegetarian, I will say that I would also prefer the meat-y scoops be kept separate, since it can be done with fairly trivial rearranging of the meat ice creams to just one table. But you know, it just wasn't that big a deal to me. I certainly don't <i>expect</i> people to go out of their way to accommodate my personal preferences; I'm okay with the idea of group events not being all about me.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

yer a bit more than hypothetical :)

#

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

How in the world would bringing your own scoop solve anything? The issue is that the shared scoops contaminate the ice cream. Scooping the contaminated ice cream with a clean scoop wouldn't help anything.

This is aside from any view I might have on the issue, but you keep repeating the scoop thing and I know you know better.

(I personally would love to see the non-dairy flavors all together at their own table and would be happy to organize and then do plenty of work to make that happen, but I don't expect anything, in any case. But that has nothing to do with your silly scoop thing. :)

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Far better explained than I managed.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the kosher people who has been almost-but-not-quite going to Baitcon for years... we always think "maybe this year!" but then it doesn't happen. Maybe next year? Anyway... I have been told by several people that keeping kosher wouldn't be a problem b/c there's a vegetarian kitchen and a meat kitchen, and we could just avoid the meat kitchen. And ice cream is generally fine as long as there isn't anything obviously non-kosher in it, and as a lifelong ice-cream freak I've really been looking forward to the chance to try some of the Baitcon flavors. I always assumed that the ice-cream equipment would be OK, because, logically, who would cook sausages in a large plastic bucket? But if the utensils really are used interchangeably, then maybe we shouldn't bother trying to go after all. :-(

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that the kitchens haven't been seperate since the con moved to Mink Hollow Lodge -- my understanding is that there's just not room and adequate electricity/water to run two kitchens at that location. (Tamar or one of the other kitchen lords may expand on this or ruthlessly contradict me here.)

The alleged new site for 2006, if it works out, might have adequate facilities for a full vegetarian kitchen; you'd have to ask JB to confirm/deny.

Even when their was a vegetarian kitchen, I'm pretty sure that implements like spatulas and pans migrated between it and the meat kitchen (and back) over the weekend. They would have been cleaned and disinfected between uses, but certainly not koshered in any sense.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Gah. "Even when there was..." Teach me to post before my second cup of coffee.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I knew what you meant. :-)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Ah. Very possible. As I said, I've been almost-going for a while, so the arrangements could have changed in that time.

If we know up front that the dishes and implements will be migrating back and forth in the kitchen, then we can just bring food. We bring food to cons all the time, it's not a problem. But if we can't have the ice cream either, that cuts way back on our ability to participate in the weekend's activities.

It seems that allergies are a concern in the shared-implements department as well. Donna's suggestion of bringing more ice-cream scoops could solve the problem (I'd be happy to bring a bunch), as long as people understood that they should stay with their respective flavors. (And hopefully one bucket could be designated the "animal flavors" bucket, to avoid other issues.)

bringing food

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, due to lack of space, bringing food really has not been feasible at the Mink Hollow location (unless it's non-perishable), and you can't keep it in your car or tent because of bears.

If we're lucky, this won't be an issue at the intended new site, but you'd have to ask kimberlogic about the kitchen facilities there, as I have not seen them.

Re: bringing food

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

We usually bring a suitcase or duffle bag with sandwich ingredients and the like - nothing that requires refrigeration. Bears are another issue, but we'd by far prefer being in a cabin to a tent anyway... if that were possible.