Reply To: Waiter’s finger was in my my soup!

iacisrmma – I will explain because you are unfamiliar with this area of Yoreh Deah. You keep bringing up the concept of cooking – bishul (probably from O.Ch. Hilchos Shabbos), which is unnecessary to make something ossur.

Heat (sometimes plus liquid, but not necessarily) is how flavours are transfered – which makes something ossur.

Therefore if you have a yad soledes bo coffee with milk in it and a piece of meat falls into the coffee – it becomes ossur, because the heated coffee absorbs the flavour of the meat (even if you remove the meat from the coffee).

Likewise if you have a bowl of warm yad soldes chicken soup (even keli shilishi, revi’ie, chamishi etc) and a some cheese fell into the chicken soup, it is ossur because the soup absorbs the flavour of the cheese (even if the cheese is immediately removed from the soup),

The concept of keli rishon, sheini, shlishi is a law in cooking: bishul, to acheive COOKING (like on shabbos, or to make wine mevushal, or to kasher utensils etc.

To transfer flavours of meat/milk or issur you don’t need to cook the ingredients together, the heat of yad soledes bo (110 degrees) is all ittakes to transfer the flavour.

Yoreh Deah is an area that rabbonim are more familiar with then balei batim (who know more of Orach CHaim halochos), so best get guidance in these halochos from a rov with semicha yora yora.