More than 1,500 years ago, Jewish scholars wrote of the shibuta, an unusual fish found in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers of ancient Babylon, modern-day Iraq.
In the Talmud, that encyclopedic compendium of Jewish law and tradition, the shibuta is described as a tasty and popular fish with a distinctive trait -- it apparently tastes like pork.
According to kashrut, Jewish dietary laws, it is forbidden to eat pig. A kosher animal must have split hooves and chew its cud. The pig, however, is not a ruminant, and is also viewed as an unclean animal in many faiths.
The significance of the shibuta is the idea that while God forbade certain foods, God also provided kosher equivalents that will evoke a similar taste. Thus a porky fish.
The shibuta was explained and (by some) tasted Sunday at an event at the Prime Grill, a new high-end kosher restaurant on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive. About 120 people, primarily Orthodox Jews, turned up to surprise their taste buds and learn.
"Kosher law we often view as very restrictive," said Ari Zivotofsky, a main organizer of the event. "It doesn't have to be. . . . People should know the Torah doesn't prohibit these things."
For example, there are no prohibitions against yak. It was served with a spicy Asian sauce. The 15-course meal also included blue marlin, sparrow and dove in a minestrone soup, crispy pigeon with mango salad, quail and partridge served with Korean-style cucumber, and spice-encrusted grilled elk.
The meal marked the first time in history that a yak had been ritually slaughtered and eaten kosher, said Ari Greenspan, another key organizer of the event. It was impossible to confirm such a sweeping statement, but it certainly made sense.
Referring to "ritual slaughterers," Greenspan said, "there's not too many schochtim up in the Himalayas."
At one table sat Tzepah Zarmi, 22, and her husband, David Zarmi, 27, along with Alan Cooper, 35, Jeff Astrof, 41, and Irvine Rabbi Dov Fischer, who decided at the last minute to drive 90 minutes to Beverly Hills to make the $175 program, despite the cost.
"This was my one chance, perhaps, to experience all the diversity God put on this Earth," Fischer said. "I knew if I didn't come, I would not forgive myself."
Cooper and Astrof both left their wives at home. "It was too exotic for my wife. She eats chicken on Shabbos, and that's about it," Astrof said.
