1. Question: [Monday 12^th MarCheshvan 5782]

I used a dairy spoon to mix Sechug-Charif [a jalapeno dip] may I eat this dip together with meat or during a meat meal?

Answer:

If the spoon was clean, then the dip remains Pareve, although some are stringent in such a case to designate it for dairy use, and it is your prerogative to be stringent or not. Certainly, one is not to initially use a dairy or meat spoon for the Charif if he wishes for it to remain Pareve.

Explanation: Although spicy foods contain a special stringency that they can absorb even non-Ben Yomo taste of a vessel, this only applies regarding one who cooks it in that vessel, or cuts it with a knife, in which in Halachic terms one has performed Duchka Desakina, and the pressure of the knife together with the sharpness of the food causes absorption. However, simply having a spicy food touch a vessel does not transfer any taste and therefore it remains Pareve. Nonetheless, there are Poskim who are stringent regarding all wet sharp foods to initially prohibit its use with the opposite food. This is aside from the fact that initially we rule that one should never place a wet sharp food on a nonkosher utensil, and seemingly the same would apply regarding placing it on a meat or dairy vessel which has absorbed hot meat or dairy if one wishes to keep it as Pareve. To note, however, that in truth even according to the stringent and Lechatchila approach, this would only apply if indeed the spoon had absorbed hot dairy in the past.

Sources: See regarding that only a knife or cooking can absorb taste into a sharp food: 96:3; Kneses Hagedola 96:4; Lechem Hapanim 96:6; Beis Lechem Yehuda 96:4; P”M 96 M.Z. 3 [although writes that possibly Lechatchila one is not to use it with the opposite food]; Halacha Pesuka 96:1; Kaf Hachaim 96:6; See regarding the need to avoid initially doing so: Shach 91:3 and 121:10; P”M 91 S.D. 3; 96 M.Z. 3