ANDRZEJ KRAUZE
How can you tell if there are microscopic worms in your sardines? “It’s not simple,” Rabbi Chaim Goldberg says about distinguishing nematodes from other, innocuous white stringy bits in the fish. So Goldberg’s nematode-expert friend, armed with a toothpick and good light, gave him lessons in his synagogue’s kitchen over several Sunday mornings in March 2011.
Goldberg was hunting nematodes because he works for the New York City-based Orthodox Union (OU), one of the largest certifiers of kosher food in the world. Only some kinds of parasites are allowed in kosher fish, and the type of worms that sometimes show up in canned sardines might have been the kind that renders them unkosher. So Goldberg, OU’s “fish expert,” was brushing up on his worm-finding skills ...
