The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals Read online

  ANN: “That’s considered a swine. It doesn’t chew its cud.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Well, then what if it was a dream-devouring cow instead? Would the dream-devouring disqualify it?”

  ANN: “No. As long as you don’t consider that scavenging.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “So Jews can eat dreams.”

  ANN: “So long as they’re not dreams of pork.”

  Banshee

  Originating in Irish mythology, the banshee is a frightening female spirit, often considered a bad omen. But how much of a bad omen? Specter-ologists are unsure. Messenger of death or the cause of death? Perhaps the two roles are interchangeable, for many people with bad tickers have had heart attacks upon encountering a banshee. The provenance of the banshee has also been the cause of some debate. Some consider the banshee a prophetess who can see the future. Others (among them heretics, drunks, and rebels) consider the banshee to be a fallen angel. A mournful wail is the calling card of the banshee, who when seen will be wearing a gray hooded cloak, not unlike a rain poncho. Dr. Jorge Luis Borges’ theory that the banshee is a form of elf should be ignored as ridiculous.

  EVIL MONKEY: “Would it be wise to try to eat a messenger of death? Wouldn’t that be like eating death? Is eating death kosher?”

  ANN: “Depends on what you mean by death. If death is a guy in a black robe, no. If death is a strawberry, then, yes.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “So she’s not kosher.”

  ANN: “No. Any ‘creature’ you can call ‘he’ or ‘she’ is probably not kosher. But why are the evil ones always women?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Nothing I can say here will save me.”

  Behemoth

  The Behemoth, of Hebrew origin, is the King of the Mammals, springing to life on the sixth day of creation. The Hulk Hogan of the imaginary animal world, the Behemoth claims as brothers the Leviathan (the supreme sea animal) and the Ziz (the supreme air animal), all unconquerable by humans. An herbivore, the Behemoth was created along with Man. The Behemoth is so incomprehensible in strength and size that mere humans cannot but guess at its form. Some believe it to be a giant hippopotamus, others a giant rhinoceros, and still others a dinosaur-sized capybara with flaming breath and custom-made Kevlar. From the Book of Job, Chapter 40, we know this: “16 Behold now his strength is in his loins and his power is in the navel of his belly. 17 His tail hardens like a cedar; the sinews of his tendons are knit together. 18 His limbs are as strong as copper, his bones as a load of iron.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “How does this thing even walk around? It sounds like its bones and limbs are so heavy that unless it’s been strengthening its core with crunches for millennia, it wouldn’t even be of much use in a pub fight. It’d just sit there in a corner, unable to lift its beer to its mouth.”

  ANN: “Blasphemer Ape!”

  EVIL MONKEY: “I’m just saying.”

  ANN: “Well, stop saying.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Surely this thing is kosher, though?”

  ANN: “As a matter of fact, it is, but only under certain conditions.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “What conditions?”

  ANN: “The end of the world.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “That’s quite a condition. And this thing had better be the most delicious piece of meat ever if we have to wait until the end of the world.”

  ANN: “Not ‘we.’ The food from the Behemoth is only for the righteous.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  Borges

  Of Argentinean origin, this blind magical creature has, over time, replaced all of its human flesh with the pulp of books. Often found at the center of mazes, libraries, or as the spectral spectator to brutal knife fights, the borges serves as a portal to other worlds. Therefore, although seemingly playful and benign, the borges is very dangerous. If you encounter a borges, you must remember to keep your sense of proportion and scale intact, or you will become lost forever in a book. Perhaps even a book that is part of the borges.

  EVIL MONKEY: “Not human.”

  ANN: “A kind of golem construct, made of books.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Are books kosher?”

  ANN: “I suppose. If you were really hungry.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “What if the book was printed on pigskin?

  ANN: “Who would print a book on pigskin?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Football fans?”

  ANN: “Do football fans even read books?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Hey!”

  ANN: “Anyway, pigskin isn’t commonly used as parchment, but cowskin, lambskin, and even deerskin are. Did you know that the Torah scrolls are made from parchment of only kosher animals? Not only that, but the ink used to write the Torah has to be special. It is carefully prepared by the scribe using various ingredients, such as the juice from gall nuts and gum arabic. And the scribe even makes the quill, again only feathers of kosher animals.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Sounds complicated.”

  ANN: “Not as complicated as a man made from books!”

  Camahueto

  Of Chilean origin, the camahueto shares a similarity to a unicorn in that it takes the form of a calf or bull with a single horn in the middle of its forehead. The camahueto is benign; indeed, the horn is said to have magical properties as an aphrodisiac when ingested as a powder. However, since such effects are quickly followed by a horn growing out of your forehead, this remedy isn’t recommended except for the adventurous and for those who plan to leave immediately after a liaison. Further, if you plant the horn, more camahuetos will grow from it, exploding outward with such strength as to leave enormous holes in the ground. If you plant the horn, do so from a safe distance, using some kind of mechanical arm. Be aware that a newly born camahueto is an angry camahueto and that the horn is very sharp indeed.

  EVIL MONKEY: “So this is a kind of unicorn, basically.”

  ANN: “Basically, yes. The horn is the only thing that makes it fantastical. But the bull part makes it kosher.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “So a rhino is kosher.”

  ANN: “No. A rhino doesn’t have cloven hooves. A triceratops is also not kosher.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Not to mention eating a triceratops might be a crime, since they’re supposedly extinct.”

  ANN: “I imagine the meat would be very dry by now, at the very least.”

  Chupacabra

  Of modern provenance, the chupacabra or “goat sucker” first appeared in Puerto Rico in the early 1990s. Descriptions vary from a reptile-like creature with leathery or scaly skin and sharp back-quills to a dog or panther with a forked tongue and large fangs. Still others ascribe to the chupacabra bat-like wings. All agree that the chupacabra is about the size of a bear and does not appear to participate in social events like tea parties and ice cream socials. Reportedly, the chupacabra sucks the blood (and sometimes the organs) of its prey through holes created in the animal’s head and body. It is said that if you can get close enough to tickle the wattles growing on its throat, you will be blessed with eternal good fortune, but none have ever been lucky enough to find out.

  ANN: “It’s definitely a carnivore.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “It’s definitely something all right. But what if that’s all just for show and they don’t eat their prey?”

  ANN: “Well, I’m pretty sure they don’t chew their cud and have cloven hooves.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Can you be sure? What if the reason no one’s ever really seen one is that they’re just some kind of shape-changing mutant cow? So, they’re already in the pasture — and pow! — get themselves a normal cow as an organ-sucking snack, then change back into a cud-chewer standing all innocent, like ‘who me, officer? I’m just a vegetarian with four stomachs,’ while the police and farmers are looking for a bat-winged monster.”

  ANN: “You need help. The kind of help I cannot provide.”

  Cornish Owlman

  Kin to the mothman sighted in the United States in the late 1960s, the Cornish Owlman, sometimes referred to as the Owlman of Mawnan
, was first sighted in the late 1970s in the village of Mawnan in Cornwall, England. Eyewitnesses indicate that this birdlike creature stands over seven feet tall and has large red eyes that glow in the dark like the lit tips of cigarettes. Its main talent appears to be the ability to transfix small rodents with its glare, but it has also mastered the art of somber, silent standing in remote ominous locales. For this reason, you should not break the mood by tickling, poking, or otherwise teasing the Cornish Owlman, as it is very delicate and will dissolve into a weather pattern or a spray of dandelion seeds at the slightest suggestion of disbelief.

  ANN: “Unfortunately an owl is not kosher because it is a bird of prey (Lev. 11:17), and obviously you cannot eat a man because that is cannibalism.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Again, though — delicious! Especially if you pull a turducken and stuff a fairy hedgehog inside of it, and maybe stuff all of that inside of a Behemoth.”

  ANN: “You crazy sheygetz, what am I going to do with you?”

  Dragon

  Although commonly thought to originate in China, some form of dragon exists in almost every culture. Most dragons are large reptile-like creatures that may or may not breathe (or spit) fire or poison. Some dragons have wings and can fly. Others do not have legs at all but crawl along the ground on their bellies. In Jewish religious texts, the earliest mention of a dragon-like creature is in the Book of Job (26:13) and Isaiah (27:1), where it is called “Nachash Bare’ach,” or a “Pole Serpent,” also translated as “the dragon of the sea.” Some dragons appear to possess great wisdom, along with the power of human speech. Other types are evil or benevolent. As Dr. Jorge Luis Borges has pointed out in various texts, there are as many dragons as fish in the seas, adding somewhat randomly that they make a report four times a year to their “superior deities.” If you see a dragon, run for your life. It’s either smarter or stronger than you, or both. Sometimes dragons have been known to take the form of tax collectors, so run from them as well.

  ANN: “No reptiles or amphibians.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “No exceptions? What if a dragon asks politely to be eaten?”

  ANN: “Jews don’t take suggestions from non-kosher food.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Does that mean you take suggestions from kosher food?!”

  ANN: “Shut. Up.”

  Encantado

  Of Brazilian origin, the encantado is a dolphin-like creature that can take human form at night to eat, drink, and have sex. Said to be musically adept and attracted to parties, the encantado has a strong libido that has produced many illegitimate children and ridiculous alibis. When it falls in love with a human, the encantado may even kidnap the object of its affection and take that person back to the sea. If you suspect your blind date is an encantado, look for the subtle signs: Is your blind date’s hair wet? Does your blind date have a habit of saying “e-e-e-e-e-e-e” in a high-pitched register? Does your blind date have a vestigial dolphin-tail? If so, it is simply a matter of whether this is an issue for you or not.

  EVIL MONKEY: “Surely it’s kosher when it’s a dolphin.”

  ANN: “Hey! Dolphins are cute. We can’t eat them.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Cute animals are not kosher?”

  ANN: “A dolphin is a mammal just like you. It has no scales, even though it has fins. Besides, what if it starts changing while you’re eating it?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Seems like that’d be the least of your worries with this creature.”

  E.T. (Extra-terrestrial)

  Although “E.T.” could refer to any alien being that visits earth, the term has come to mean the title character in the famous movie by Steven Spielberg (a nice Jewish boy). The E.T. character grew out of Spielberg’s loneliness after his parents’ divorce. He had a “friend” to comfort him, a companion who for some reason looked like a combination of a collapsed termite mound and a dung heap. Despite coming from a civilization of advanced technological powers, E.T. prefers to burble like a child and make decisions based only on the lesser brain lodged in its left foot. It also likes to hide in closets and pretend to be a stuffed animal. Despite its outer space origins, E.T. shares much in common with certain Japanese spirits.

  ANN: “Why are we even discussing this one?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “It had cloven hooves.”

  ANN: “It’s a humanoid.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Oh, please! It looks like a pile of dung. It seemed to chew cud. Would any alien be automatically unkosher?”

  ANN: “I guess it really depends on the alien — like a plant?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “An alien that comes down to Earth.”

  ANN: “No, because it wouldn’t be considered an animal.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “What if it looked just like a cow, but with a brain?”

  ANN: “Cows have brains. But cows don’t travel to other planets using their brains.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “My point exactly!”

  ANN: “Anything intelligent is not kosher.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Checked that out with a rabbi, have ya?”

  Headless Mule

  Taken from Brazilian folklore, the headless mule is a fire-spewing, spectral quadruped with no head. Yet this form hides a most sorrowful ghost: the specter of a woman cursed by G-d for her sins to gallop, from dusk to dawn, through the countryside in mule form for all eternity. Being transformed into a fire-spewing, headless mule occurs due to sins usually sexual in nature — such as having relations outside marriage, or with a priest. The animal often takes on a blackish hue. A white cross manifests across its chest. Silver horseshoes create a thunderous sound as it gallops through the night. In addition to spewing fire, it moans and cries despite having no head. The first person to see the headless mule was a seventeenth-century lecherous priest who had just departed an alehouse at three in the morning. Since then, many in a similar condition have seen the mule. If you see a headless mule, first look around for its head. Then, depart.

  ANN: “No! And don’t even start. Because the mule itself, even if it weren’t fire-breathing, isn’t kosher. The fire doesn’t cleanse it.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “But it’s self-cooking!”

  Jackalope

  Also known as the “antelabbit” or the “stagbunny,” the existence of the jackalope continues to be a topic of some debate (in contrast to the largely confirmed abumi-guchi and Cornish Owlman) — this despite a constant stream of taxidermical evidence in the affirmative. A cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope, goat, or deer, the jackalope is usually portrayed as a rabbit with antlers. Able to mimic the human voice in an attempt to confuse, the jackalope has a very aggressive reputation as the “warrior rabbit.” Its Achilles heel is a love of drink, leading hunters to leave out whiskey in odd places. A drunk jackalope is more easily captured, and its meat tastes like lobster. Some experts estimate that up to 40 percent of all “lobster” meat sold in the United States is actually jackalope. Claims by some hunters to have “milked” female jackalopes remain rumor only, given probable thumb-to-teat size differentials.

  ANN: “No, rabbits are not kosher.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Not even rabbits?! Why not?”

  ANN: “Because although it chews the cud, it does not have hooves.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “Again with the prejudice against the type of feet. What do you have against paws?”

  ANN: “I don’t have anything against paws. Creatures that have them are not kosher.”

  EVIL MONKEY: “But Rabbit is only one letter away from Rabbi.”

  ANN: “That still doesn’t make it kosher. It might make it even less kosher. . .”

  Jaud

  Of Slavic origin, the jaud goes by many names, including drekavac, plakavac, and bukavac. However, most agree that the jaud usually takes the form of an unbaptized infant or unborn baby with vampiric qualities. The jaud has a terrifying, blood-curdling scream much like the common banshee. Described as vampiric, it doesn’t actually harm anyone, although it can predict someone’s death. It is visible only at night and often around Christmas
time, when it provides a bracing antidote to the normal holiday cheer. Should you encounter a jaud at a party, try not to remark upon the amazing impotence of its vampiric abilities. Doing so will just depress the jaud and, as a result, it may go sit in a corner and scream, bringing down the mood of the whole event.

  ANN: “Oh, do I even have to tell you?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “I guess not.”

  ANN: “Number one, a vampire drinks blood. Blood ingesting is a no-no. Number two — baby?”

  EVIL MONKEY: “But it’s not a very good vampire, apparently.”

  ANN: “Even a mediocre vampire isn’t kosher.”

  Jotai

  Japanese in origin, jotai are a form of “tsukumogami,” or spirit created from a folding-screen cloth used to separate areas in a room. These spirits manifest when an inanimate object has existed for at least a century, after which it becomes alive and aware. Anything this old can become a tsukumogami. In the case of suspected jotai, always know the age of your folding screen before changing clothes behind one — along with any other activities that you might wish kept private and not subject to gossip amongst tsukumogami. Having no true lives of their own, these spirits live through the actions of humans. Of course, in the modern consumer age, you may not have any household items over a century old, but beware your great-great-grandmother’s teapot.