1. Question: [Monday, 13^th Teves 5781]

We were cooking pasta in a meat pot that had been used for cooking meat in the past 24 hours and accidentally placed on it a dairy cover that has not been used for dairy for many months. What is the law of my pasta and my pot and my cover?

Answer:

The pasta remains kosher although if you are Ashkenazi then you may not be eaten neither with meat nor milk and may not be placed on a dairy plate or eaten with dairy utensils. Your meat pot remains kosher although if you are Ashkenazi then you need to kosher the dairy cover. You can Kosher it by performing Hagalah in boiling water. If it is difficult to perform Hagalah than you can alternatively do the other equivalent of Hagalah, known as Iruiy Keli Rishon with Even Meluban, by pouring boiling water over it using a electric water boiler that contains a coil inside and is still connected to the electricity and is on and boiling the water as you pour it over the cover.

The explanation: Being that the dairy cover was not Ben Yomo therefore it does not have ability to create a meat and milk prohibition. This applies even though in general we are stringent by covers to consider them always as Ben Yomo, as this stringency only applies when there is actual meat or milk cooking in the pot and not simply Pareve food, as in this case, which makes it a question of Nat Bar Nat Diheteira, and is therefore more lenient. Furthermore, being that there was no actual meat in the pot and it is just that it contains the fresh taste of meat inside the walls, therefore from the letter of the law the cover does not even require Koshering, and the food remains completely kosher and may be eaten together with meat. Nonetheless, the custom amongst Ashkenazim is to always treat the non-Ben Yomo vessel in these type of cases as nonkosher, and therefore we concluded above that the cover should be Koshered. Likewise, the Ashkenazi custom is not to eat the food with neither meat nor milk and also not to eat it with a dairy utensils.

Sources: See Rama 94:5; Michaber 95:3; Peri Chadash 94:14; Shach 94:18 and 20; Taz 94:8; Toras Chatas 57:14; Chavas Daas 94:16-17; P”M 94 S.D. 18; M.Z. 7; Biur Hagr”a 94:18; Peri Chadash 94:19; Lechem Hapanim 94:22; Beis Lechem Yehuda 94:20; Kaf Hachaim 94:52, 54 and 56; see regarding that we do not apply the non-Ben Yomo cover stringency in such a case: Peri Megadim 93 S.D. 4; Hakashrus 10:74