Meat and Fish Part III

There is one more issue we need to discuss and that is the issue of milsa avidah l'ta'amah. The gemara says that anything that is Milsa avidah l'ta'amah- literally things that are put into food for there taste-are not batul. Meaning, if a certain ingredient was placed into food for taste, even if there is 60 times that ingredient it is not automatically batul.

 

In our case of Worcestershire sauce it stands to reason that they only but anchovies into the sauce because anchovies add the desired flavor and thus even though some Worcestershire sauces have less than 1/60th anchovies shouldn't a "F"  still be required on the kashrus symbol?

 

Rav Eitan Schnall qouting Rav Schechter explains that the rule of Milsa avidah l'ta'amah only eliminates the heter of 1/60th if you can taste it, but if a chef says that he can't taste it then it could still be batul. This logic makes a lot of sense, the concept of bitul is not hokus-pokus, it works within reality, thus if the taste still exists, even if less than 1/60th we can't go and say it doesn't. However, if something was put in for taste and we can verify that it can't be tasted the concept of bitul would apply again,

 

According to Rav Dovid Cohen, of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, in reality there is only  the smallest amount of fish molecules in Worcestershire sauce that for sure you don't taste it. However, the companies put the anchovies into the sauce because any self respecting chef only uses Worcestershire sauce with anchovies. So the flavor comes from some artificial flavoring and they put in enough to get it on the ingredient list, but since there is no taste of anchovies and the anchovies are less than 1/60th, one is allowed to use with meat.