"No pork on my fork"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:27:42 EDT, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>I walked by a Harlem restaurant on Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue)
>and about 120th Street. A sign on the wall said "No pork on my fork."
>...
>Ludacris said this. Is he Jewish? That would be luda--crazy. If anyone
>has any info on where this comes from and how it is used, send it along
>but keep it kosher...Maybe I'll add it to the food section of my "Big
>Apple" site.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that no, Ludacris is not Jewish.
(Or was that an allusion to the line in _Pulp Fiction_ where John Travolta
asks Samuel Jackson if he's Jewish for not eating pork?)  In any case,
Ludacris might be referencing an earlier rap song -- Big Daddy Kane's
"Young Gifted and Black" (not to be confused with Nina Simone's similarly
titled song) from his 1989 album _It's A Big Daddy Thing_.

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http://www.ohhla.com/anonymous/bigdaddy/bigdaddy/young.bdk.txt
No pork on my fork, strictly fish on my dish
The Kane fallin victim?  *tchk*  Sucker, you wish
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Big Daddy Kane is a member of the Nation of Islam (actually, an offshoot
of NOI known as The Five Percent).  Not surprisingly, the No Pork On My
Fork restaurant in Harlem is run by NOI.

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http://travel.guardian.co.uk/cities/story/0,7450,532849,00.html
No Pork on my Fork
Adam Clayton Av at African Square
Self-explanatory Nation of Islam restaurant for Louis Farrakhan supporters
only.
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--Ben Zimmer