Free Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals by Jeff VanderMeer Page A

eccentric imaginary animals ever. There’s the abumi-guchi, whose mouth is formed from an old stirrup. And the Cornish Owlman, which is “very delicate and will dissolve into a weather pattern or a spray of dandelion seeds at the slightest suggestion of disbelief.” And all the other hilarious oddities beyond Borges and the bestiaries.*
    What’s the point of The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals ? This beastly book — derived from, but careening beyond, traditional lore — is great fantasy fun.
    *Being a pedantic independent scholar, I can’t resist mentioning that the most famous tale of someone wanting to eat an imaginary animal concerns the profligate Roman emperor Heliogabalus. He wanted to consume the immortal phoenix so that he, too, would become immortal. His envoys brought him an exotic bird from a distant land. He ingested it. But he was murdered shortly thereafter, leading people to conclude that he had eaten a mortal bird instead — perhaps a phoenicopter (flamingo) or a Bird of Paradise.

Introduction: Jews and Food, Real and Imaginary
    Ann VanderMeer
    Two years ago, my husband and I were taking a hike in the woods. I don’t know how it came up, but at some point we started talking about the “kosherness” of certain animals. With Passover fast approaching, what you can and cannot eat was on my mind. The subject led to the silliness of trying to figure out what imaginary animals might be kosher. As we bantered back and forth, we decided that we were having too much fun, which meant it might be fun for our readers, too. So we did a blog post in honor of Passover.
    Jeff gathered up a list of imaginary animals. “Evil Monkey,” Jeff’s blogging alter ego, and I debated the qualities and virtues of each one. (I was armed with several texts, including the Etz Hayim .) Then we put the results online, and before we knew it, word had spread — and spread! Not only was the blog post picked up by the pop culture sites Boing Boing and Jewcy, but people all over the world were linking to it — and talking about it. Debates over our “discussions” blossomed on other blogs. The original post generated hundreds of comments and the links generated even more. Swedish National Public Radio even did a story on it. (We couldn’t understand a word of it, but there was a photo of a Wookiee from Star Wars — are they kosher?). Soon, we were approached by Tachyon Publications to do a book — in part to celebrate their fifteenth year of publication — and we said why not? Stranger things have happened, but we couldn’t have imagined when we were talking on our hike that a book would result from our original discussion!
    However, one thing you can be sure of: Rules about food have plagued the Jews ever since G-d gave us manna. Even that had rules — only take enough for your family (don’t be a greedy-guts). Eat it all because if you save any it will be rotten and maggoty the next day. Of course, the Jews had to try it and it was all rotten and maggoty, teaching us to trust that G-d will provide fresh manna each day.
    Then there was the bitching the Jews did in the desert when they got tired of eating manna from heaven every single day. And after all their bitching (which, by the way, they do a lot ; poor, poor Moses), Moses pleads with G-d to provide something different . And G-d, having the kind of sense of humor that came up with a creature like the platypus, decides to shower the Jews with tons and tons of meat — until they are drowning in it.
    Jews and food, food and Jews. We have food-related traditions with just about every single holiday. Passover? Here, eat some stale crackers that we call matzah. Hanukkah? Potato pancakes and chocolate coins. Purim? Let’s have some yummy hamentaschen pastry. Rosh Hashanah? Round challah, and maybe a fish head (don’t ask!). Even with Yom Kippur, food figures into it because there’s a lack of food. The infamous Jewish Mother is always trying to get her children to