Keeping It Kosher : Rabbi Fires Up Hotel Del’s Kitchen to Prepare Traditional Wedding Menu

It isn’t every day that Steven Stancer, executive chef at the Hotel del Coronado, turns over his kitchen to a rabbi.

But when Nathanial Pollack, San Diego County’s only official kosher food inspector, walked in last week, Stancer put his hand to his forehead in a crisp salute.

“Ready to go, rabbi?” asked Stancer.

The two men marched into the kitchen’s kosher quarters--a humble facility compared to the vast main kitchen--where Pollack scrutinized a kosher menu for a weekend wedding.

“First things first,” Pollack said, noting that kosher cooking demands a clean kitchen.

“Whatever we can’t fire directly, we’ll wash and place them in scalding, superheated water,” he said.

Scrambling Chefs

Pollack, 58, commandeered the kosher kitchen, scrambling the chefs and stewards to sterilize just about everything in sight--stoves, refrigerators, grills, pots, pans and silverware--according to Jewish custom for the nuptials.

He waved a torch back and forth over a pan, making sure the spewing blue flame covered every inch of its surface. In doing so, errant flames accidentally charred the white walls above the steel sink.

“Now, in the case of these plastic trays, we’ll cover them (with aluminum foil) in order to prevent contact with the food,” Pollack said. “I don’t want to get in trouble for melting trays,” he said, chuckling.

Although overseeing private functions such as weddings goes beyond the call of duty--Pollack’s job requires him only to inspect kosher-food dealers--he said he does it so that Jewish traditions and modern luxuries can mix.

Updated Tradition

“The main reason why I do extra things like this is because I want the people in the Jewish community who want to hold such functions at nice places like this (to be able to) do so,” he said.

As a rabbi fully trained in the laws of kashruth , the strict guidelines of Jewish dietary custom, Pollack stepped forward when his predecessor at the San Diego Rabbinical Assn. died four years ago and has continued to maintain the one-person inspection service.

“The laws of kashruth, which are found in rabbinic literature like the Talmud . . . take a long time to learn,” Pollack said.

“It’s even more difficult to understand how to practically apply the laws to modern, everyday life,” Pollack said. For example, a woman once asked him how she could make her dishwasher kosher.

Pollack goes into the heart of the Jewish community three or four times a week, conducting “spot checks” to make sure the kosher custom is properly followed.

“I inspect all the places that profess to sell and deal in kosher products; that includes everything from butcher shops, Jewish homes for the elderly, community centers (to) food mobiles,” he said.

Although Pollack has not slaughtered animals in his role as a kosher inspector, he said he is trained in the skills of a schochet , or ritual slaughterer.

“The Bible teaches us that every creature’s life has value,” he said. “So when we do slaughter animals, we do it in a way that inflicts the least amount of pain.”

Genuinely Kosher

Since most kosher meat in San Diego is imported from Los Angeles and the East Coast, Pollack said he has been spared this difficult task, and concentrates on his primary responsibility: to check ingredients and labels to make sure that goods are produced by authentic kosher companies.

Approved food dealers in the county are given licenses from the Rabbinical Association’s kashrut committee, he said. But if dealers don’t measure up to standards, Pollack said their licenses are quickly revoked.

“So far, I’ve only had to revoke one. But I have issued several warnings from time to time,” he said.

For businesses, a revoked license can be as deadly as a schochet’s knife.

“Many of the rabbis will announce it from their pulpits when a store loses a license. Word like that spreads like wildfire,” said Pollack, who also heads the Beth Torah Congregation in Laguna Hills.

If Pollack isn’t in the pulpit, or making his spot checks, it’s a good bet he’s keeping a close eye on a private function, like the wedding at the Hotel Del.

“Ah, ah, ah--don’t put those in there,” Pollack said as he reprimanded Jose Barra, who froze just short of the freshly sterilized kitchen sinks while carrying a pair of dirty tongs.

Although Barra, the hotel’s supervisor of stewards, had his every move carefully watched by Pollack, he said working for the rabbi wasn’t all that bad.

More Careful

“You just have to be a little more careful,” Barra said.

In recent years a greater number of intermarriages and the popularity of Reform Judaism--which regards observance of the kosher rules as a matter of personal choice, not God-given law--had put those Jews who abide by the custom in decline.

But Pollack says that is changing.

With a growing Jewish population in the county--about 40,000--and a return of many younger Jews to traditional customs--he said he believes that his work has gained importance.

“There has been a strong return to conservatism, to a more spiritual life,” Pollack said.

“Many younger people, who turned away from a Jewish life in order to assimilate into the mainstream of society, are realizing that life without such beautiful customs hasn’t benefited them. They’re coming back to experience the joy of such customs.”