[Avodah] What's the berakha on hearts of palm?

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Arie Folger _afolger at aishdas.org_ (mailto:afolger at aishdas.org) 


>>  According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_palm we are dealing
with  an important edible product of a tree, about which I saw no
indication that  it bears any other commestble fruits. So does one make
a ha'etz on it, or if  not, why not? <<

-- 
Arie Folger,





>>>>
There are hundreds of species of palm trees and some of them grow edible  
fruit, e.g. dates and coconuts.  We have many, many different kinds of palm  
trees here in Florida.
 
But I think the bracha on hearts of palm is adama because these are plants  
that are planted and harvested like vegetables.  The fact that if allowed  
to continue growing, they would eventually grow to be trees, is not  
relevant.  Right now they are veggies and not trees.  
 
Also I think ha'etz is said only on fruit.  What bracha would you make  on 
the roots, leaves, bark or branches of a tree?  I think  adamah.  Hearts of 
palm are part of the tree itself -- they would grow up  to be wood if 
allowed to grow.  They are not fruit.
 
After writing the above I came across the following halachic article by R'  
Yirmiyohu Kaganoff on the subject.  Baruch shekivanti:
 
--quote--
 
 
Whereas most of the other items listed in this article are all relatively  
recent innovations to the Jewish diet, Jews have been eating hearts of palm 
for  probably two thousand years. The Gemara (Berachos 36a) cites a dispute 
what  bracha to recite on them! Rav Yehudah contended that the bracha should 
be  ha’adamah like any other vegetable, whereas Shmuel held that it should 
be  shehakol since it eventually hardens. The Gemara then points out that 
there are  other vegetables such as radishes that harden and become inedible, 
and yet the  bracha is ha’adamah. This seems to conflict with Shmuel’s 
opinion. Shmuel  responds that farmers plant radishes intending to eat them as 
radishes, whereas  palm trees are not planted intending to eat the hearts! 
The Gemara concludes that the halacha is like Shmuel that the bracha on 
palm  hearts is shehakol, and this is the accepted psak halacha (Shulchan Aruch 
 204:1). However, contemporary canners and producers of palm hearts do not  
usually harvest them from wild growth because of environmental and market  
availability concerns. Instead, they cultivate plantations of particular 
species  of palm for the hearts just like any other cash crop. Based on this 
information,  it seems that the correct bracha before eating palm hearts 
should be ha’adamah  and not shehakol. (It would not be ha’eitz because one is 
eating the stem, not  the fruit.) 
--end quote-- 
_http://rabbikaganoff.com/archives/1527_ 
(http://rabbikaganoff.com/archives/1527)  


--Toby Katz
==========




--------------------  





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20100812/fa37e5f5/attachment-0002.htm>