Q&A: Nat Bar Nat
Nat Bar Nat
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m having trouble understanding those who permit nat bar nat in foods.
After all, the permission of nat bar nat is based on the idea that the meaty taste weakens when it goes from the meat pot to the French fries, but when you eat fries that were fried in meaty oil {even if it is clear}, you are actually eating the first “nat” — the oil!!! And you very much want the oil. Although the Shulchan Arukh ruled in Yoreh De’ah 89, section 3, that after a meat dish one may eat cheese, all Sephardim have the custom to forbid it like the Rema. Thank you, Rabbi.
Answer
First, you could have asked the same question not specifically about foods, in a case where oil was cooked in a meat pot and then used to make fries. So it doesn’t seem to me to be connected specifically to nat bar nat in foods.
As for the question itself, I think that with frying, the halakhic decisors take the view that you are not eating the oil itself. The oil imparted taste into the dish, but it is not present there as a tangible substance.
Discussion on Answer
It seems to me that you didn’t read what I wrote.
I read it, and I didn’t understand how it answers the question.
The meat taste also weakens when it is cooked/fried in the oil, and so does the meat taste absorbed in the pot in which the oil was cooked. From that point on, the oil itself, together with the taste inside it, enters the fries, and according to those who permit it, that is permitted nat bar nat.
If your claim is that the oil is not merely taste but an actual substance, then it should prohibit in both cases. I explained that these halakhic decisors presumably understand that the taste in the oil that enters the fries is not an actual substance but taste, and therefore they permit it.
If the taste in the oil had entered the fries, I’d have kept quiet — that would be completely similar. But here the oil itself, with the first taste, is visibly present on the fries.
Pri Megadim, Orach Chayim, Seder Hanhagot HaNish’al im HaSho’el, Second Order:
“And for nat bar nat we require specifically that the first taste be weakened in a vessel and the second in food; but if there are multiple foods, and even if first in food and afterward in a vessel, it is considered only one taste.”
Chavot Da’at, Biurim, siman 95, se’if katan 1, section 1:
“(1) That this is considered nat bar nat. See Sha’arei Dura, siman 60, that specifically when the first taste is in a vessel and the second taste is in food is it nat bar nat; but in foods, even a thousand tastes are considered as one.”
Responsa of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, first edition, siman 67:
“Even according to the view of the Mechaber (Yoreh De’ah 95:3) that a dairy bowl in a meat pot is called permitted nat bar nat, nevertheless here it is forbidden, because onions in water are not considered nat bar nat, as Sha’arei Dura wrote: if it is not absorbed in a vessel, it is not called nat bar nat, because it has not weakened.”
Arukh HaShulchan, Yoreh De’ah, siman 95, section 3:
“And know that even regarding permitted nat bar nat, we say it only when the first taste was in a vessel and the second in the food, as with fish that were placed on a bowl, as we wrote. But when the first taste was also in food, we do not permit nat bar nat. For example, if some hot food was placed on meat and became heated, and afterward hot fish were placed on that hot food, it is forbidden to eat the fish with kutach, for so ruled the medieval authorities (Rishonim), the author of Sefer HaTerumot and the author of HaShe’arim, siman 60 [brought in Pri Megadim in Mishbetzot Zahav 1 and in Chavot Da’at], that specifically when the first taste is in a vessel and the second in food, the taste is weakened; but when the first is in food, it is like an actual substance [there]. And there is one who wishes to disagree with this [see Pitchei Teshuvah], but there is no substance to his words, for certainly this is so, and for the fundamental reason we wrote in the previous section: that we do not say the taste does not spread except because of its weakness, and this applies when the first taste is from a vessel and not from food.”
Rabbi Rimon… However, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Halikhot Olam, vol. 7, p. 79) in principle adopts the lenient positions, and the Shakh was also lenient (as we saw above) regarding the law of waiting even if there are a few meaty remnants (even though they are not nullified in sixty), and if so perhaps one should also be lenient in our case despite the small amount of meaty taste in the fries. But I heard in the name of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef that in practice he was not lenient in our case, because the oil is noticeable on the fries, and the law of the oil is like the law of a meat dish; therefore one should not eat dairy after eating the fries.
There, the taste that leaves the pot is weakened {nat bar nat}, but in the case of frying in meaty oil I am literally eating the first taste — the oil.