Outline of Ancient Judean Cuisine

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

Judea.

I. Cookery of Bible.

1. In the beginning, largely vegetable.

2. Abel's offering of lamb. Gen. IV: 4.

3. Leviticus—clean and unclean foods—laws.

4. Foods mentioned in Bible.

a. Abraham offers unleavened bread to the angel.

b. Esau—mess of pottage—lentils, very savory—lentils partaken of in time of mourning.

c. Isaac gives blessing to Jacob for kid dressed as venison—indicating that venison was highly regarded.

d. Milk and honey—Land of Canaan—delicacies—"seethed milk," butter—song of Deborah, "butter in a lordly dish."

e. Bread — leavened and unleavened; leaven dates from earliest use of meal, back to times of savagery — found among most primitive peoples.

f. Locusts.

g. Food of captivity in Egypt:

(1) Corn

(2) Melons

(3) Cucumbers

(4) Leeks

(5) Onions

(6) Garlic

(7) Fish

(8) Pork

(9) Veal (calf, tender and good)

(10) Cabbage

h. Wine—grapes.

i. Olives—fruit of trees.

j. Quail—Exodus.

k. Pulse.

l. Manna — lichen, still known as food in that locality.

II. Feasts of Bible:

a. Nebuchadnezzar.

b. Belshazzar.

c. Esther.

d. Solomon.

Barrows, Anna, and Bertha E. Shapleigh. Outline on the History of Cookery. Teacher's College, Columbia University, 1915.

Anna Barrows, Bertha E. Shapleigh

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