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New Kosher
Even amongst Orthodox Jews, rules of Kosher
had been considered important in religious observance, but not
for health and safety. This changed with the destruction of the
Rising Sun Public House.
In Old Testament times, Jews had been
influenced by diverse cultures such as the Greeks, Egyptians,
Babylonians and Persians. This influence included diet. Matters
were similar in cosmopolitan, twenty-first century London where
restaurants and take-aways abounded, purveying foods from India,
China, Italy, The West Indies, South America, Thailand, Vietnam
and many other countries.
Inevitably, styles of cuisine borrowed from
each other to produce eclectic combinations. Inadvertently, this
was also dangerous, experimental chemistry. New combinations of
ingredients generated new compounds. Cooking unpredictably
modified these. Finally, biochemical processes within the human
digestive system further transmuted these substances, leading to
unforeseeable consequences - as was demonstrated by George
Saunders.
George was a well-paid bachelor working in
the City. As a result, he ate mostly at restaurants and from take-aways,
taking full advantage of the diversity. He was unaware, however,
that sampling most available cuisine within one week had caused
the secretion of a chemical in his urine very similar to nitro-glycerine.
He had called at The Rising Sun for a drink
on his way home and there visited the gentleman’s lavatory.
The blast demolished the pub and blew-out windows within a half-mile
radius.
Also, the solid human waste of the local
population now often contained a substance chemically similar to
semtex. This was stable when produced, but accumulated at the
local sewage treatment works. Nothing unusual was noted until an
electrical short-circuit at the works acted as a detonator. The
crater was a mile wide.
Emergency ‘New Kosher’ rules were
implemented. Ethnic restaurants were segregated to different
areas of the country, and ingredients were carefully regulated
and monitored. It now became clear how Moses had parted the Red
Sea, and the manner in which Joshua had breached the walls of
Jerico. TV Cookery programmes were banned, and many acclaimed
chefs joined top-secret military projects. Delia Smith’s
‘How to Cook for World War Three’ was quickly withdrawn
from sale.
Serious problems confronted the United
Nations in enforcing the ‘Ethnic Cuisine Proliferation
Treaty’. International intelligence led to interception of
weapons-grade paprika and enriched soy sauce en route to rogue
states.
These were as nothing, however, compared to
the outcome of Russian spice production. Spices from the former
Soviet Union sold prodigiously throughout the world, and were
hailed as a major factor in the recovery of the Russian economy.
The conversion of obsolete plutonium reprocessing plants into
spice factories, however, led to traces of weapons-grade
plutonium in the products. Eclectic culinary innovation had, over
several years, concentrated this to critical levels in some
individuals.
We now estimate that each bowel movement
equated to around one hundred megatons.
Those few of us who survived here in the
Middle Eastern desert must therefore ensure that the rules of
‘New Kosher’ are stressed in our religious writings for
future generations, and that their true significance is never
forgotten.
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