Nine Days - Meat and Wine

QUESTION: Beginning Rosh Chodesh Av until after Tisha B’Av (the Nine Days) the custom of Ashkenazim is not to eat meat or drink wine, in remembrance of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. What about a food that was cooked with meat, or a pareve soup that was cooked in a fleishig pot? Can they be consumed? Also, can one eat foods that contain red wine vinegar?

ANSWER: The Mishnah Berurah (551:63) writes that the common custom is not to eat foods that were cooked together with meat. For example, one should not eat a potato from a fleishig cholent, even though it does not contain actual meat. Since it absorbed from the meat, we refrain from eating it. The custom is to refrain from all types of meat including chicken. However fish may be eaten. Mishnah Berurah adds that one may cook a pareve food in a fleishig pot, even if the pot had been used to cook meat immediately beforehand.

What about foods that are cooked with wine?

The Be'er Haitev (551:29) writes that although the Taz permitted foods cooked with wine, today, since the common custom is to refrain from foods cooked with meat, the same applies to foods cooked with wine. However, Rav Shternbuch (Teshuvos V'hanhagos 2:259) questions this ruling. He explains that when a food is cooked with meat, everyone refers to the food as being fleishig. If one were to permit eating it during this time, one can easily get confused and eat actual meat as well. However, a food that was cooked with wine is not identified as being wine, and it therefore should be permitted. He therefore permits breads that contain wine or grape juice so long as its presence is not obvious, even though the wine is not batel b'shishim (nullified in sixty parts).

Rema (OC 551:9) writes that using wine vinegar is acceptable during the Nine Days. He explains that wine vinegar does not promote simcha (joy), and was not included in the wine restriction. Wine “vinegar” refers to wine that has fermented to the point where one would not drink it (MB 551:57).

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