I am sorry I can't eat a hoopoe. I don't know what it is, but I would have enjoyed asking for it in the supermarket.

The categories for forbidden animals and fish are laid out in this sidrah but the criteria for birds is less clear. There are just lists of what can and cannot be eaten and the rabbis had to work out the connective factors.

It may be that all forbidden creatures embody some kind of characteristic that we are supposed to avoid. Hence animals that obtain food by wild means are not permitted and maybe the animals we can eat are more similar to humans than the ones forbidden to us. Even categories of fish could echo this idea: the fish we may eat live closer to us - to the surface of the water, and have fins and scales rather than shells, their swimming motion is forward-undulation rather than a sideways scramble on the bottom of the sea.

If we accept this idea, the list of permitted and forbidden birds makes more sense.

The birds we eat are domestic, they "walk" rather than fly. Non-kosher birds are birds of prey or scavengers, or live in dark, ruined places.

The stork is forbidden, which seems strange, especially when Rashi says that it is called chasidah - from the word chesed, meaning kindness, because it shows affection to its young - but it is forbidden to us because it only takes care of its own and does not look after other species.

Does restraint from consuming animals with undesirable habits make us better people?

On safari in South Africa, I watched with horrified fascination as a family of vultures helped themselves to dinner from a buffalo carcass. One after another they delved inside - pulling out the innards- while the others hovered and then pushed themselves forward to dig in, ruthlessly unseating their relatives. I offered the binoculars to my friend to survey the carnage but he declined, saying: "No thanks. I can get that view every week at our shul kiddush."