If one finds in one’s meaty draining board a milky spoon, and doesn’t know how it got there, should one suspect the worse? Perhaps it could have been used for hot meat or washed with the wrong silverware? Or do we say that since the item has a chazaka that the utensil was milky, one doesn’t have to worry unless one knows for sure?
Answer:
The second sevara is correct.
The dairy spoon’s being in the meaty draining board presents us with a safek – we are in doubt as to how it got there.
Because there is a chazakah of the spoon being kosher (and dairy), the safek is not enough to change its status, and the spoon remains dairy.
Even where there was an actual event (such as something being mixed into a pot), some poskim write that a chezkas kashrus remains (for instance, the Aruch Ha-Shulchan explains that this is why we believe testimony mesiach lefi tumo concerning taste; see also Peri Megadim 105:3), and this is the more true where there is no concrete event.
