Almost sounds like the beginning of a "dad" joke, right?
Speaking of which: What do you call a bear with no ears? Answer: It doesn't matter... he can't hear you. Phew.... ok... I got that out of my system.
Siman 92 of Yoreh Deah is titled: The Laws Concerning Milk Falling into a Pot of Meat, which contains nine סעיפים/sections. The first סעיף/section begins like this: A k'zayis of meat falls into a pot of boiling milk. No, really. I told you already, I got the jokes of my system. The second סעיף/section, in fact, is about milk falling into a pot of meat. The rest of the siman? I am still learning it, but skimming ahead I see lots of stuff about practical -- and sometimes surprising -- ways that one gets himself into a potentially forbidden milk and meat situation. Also some stuff about חנ''ן -- when a leetle bit of milk or meat makes a big chunk of forbidden meat/milk combination. More about all that later, בעזרת השם.
The bird's eye view of the first סעיף/section is what to do in case of (obviously unintentional) mixtures of meat and milk. The first step is to determine if we have a problem, Houston. The Torah forbids the taste of meat and milk cooked together. How do we know if there is enough of the wrong component to cause an issue with the mixture? The obvious solution would be to taste it. Problem: A Jew can't taste it, because if the taste were detectable, then it is a Torah prohibition for a Jew to eat it. Have a non-Jew taste it? Sigh... non-Jews are notoriously unreliable about protecting Jews from harm; physical or spiritual. Unless it would cost him money and/or damage his reputation. The Shulchan Aruch, therefore, says you can ask a non-Jew who is an expert chef to taste it. Since he prides himself on his exquisite taste, he will surely tell the truth -- his reputation would be ruined if it got out that his refined pallet could not detect notes of cow or cow extract.
The Rema, however, says that even that is not reliable and therefore we Ashkanezim just require a strict less than one in sixty rule. For reasons beyond the scope of this TftD, Sephardim nowadays also don't generally depend on an expert chef, but require less than one in 60, as we Ashkanezim do. More on that later, בעזרת השם. Now, though, I'd like to note a surprise I discovered in the first commentary regarding that first סעיף/section. Namely; the case of meat falling into boiling milk really requires the milk to be in the pot that is on the fire and boiling. Not just "whew... that is boiling hot", but actually boiling -- at least a soft boil. But once the milk is cooler than that, even the Shulchan Aruch won't depend on an expert chef.
Wait... yes, I had to read that a few times to confirm that I wasn't misreading. Boiling hot is fine, but cooler than that -- even hot enough to make your hand recoil -- is worse. Really?! Wouldn't you think boiling is worse than real hot? I did.
So here is the thing. That chunk of meat -- we are throwing that out in any case. Our concern is can we save the milk in the pot. Remember, it is the cooked mixture of meat and milk that is forbidden. So... the hot milk is certainly penetrating the chunk of meat. Hence, the chunk of meat is forbidden. But the only way that the milk can become forbidden is for some meat juice to leak into the milk. But -- and this is so cool -- the boiling of the milk not only causes milk to enter the meat, but it also prevents that milk and meat juices from coming back out! Once the milk cools off a bit -- by removing from the heat, for example -- then things settle down and that forbidden cooked meat/milk juice can now leak out of the chunk of meat and contaminate our pot of (now) not boiling milk.
Isn't that cool? (Of course the pun is intended.) I am on a roll, so I'll end with this: I kid you not.
Famously, the Shulchan Aruch
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