1. Primitive Habits:
Orientals in general are vegetarians, rather than flesh eaters. There is some reason to believe that primitive man was a vegetarian (see <010216>Genesis 2:16;
3:2,6). It would seem, indeed, from a comparison of <010129>
Genesis 1:29 f with 9:3 f that Divine permission to eat the flesh of animals was first given to Noah after the Deluge, and then only on condition of drawing off the blood in a prescribed way (compare the kosher (kasher) meat of the Jews of today).
2. Cereals:
The chief place among the foodstuffs of Orientals must be accorded to the cereals, included in the American Standard Revised Version under the generic term “grain,” in the King James Version and the English Revised Version “corn.” The two most important of these in the nearer East are wheat (chiTTah) and barley (se`orim). The most primitive way of using the wheat as food was to pluck the fresh ears (Leviticus23:14; <120442>2 Kings 4:42), remove the husks by rubbing in the hands (<052325>Deuteronomy 23:25;
<401201>Matthew 12:1), and eat the grains raw. A common practice in all lands
and periods, observed by the fellaheen of Syria today, has been to parch or roast the ears and eat the grain not ground. This is the parched corn (the American Standard Revised Version “‘grain”) so often mentioned in the Old Testament, which with bread and vinegar (sour wine) constituted the meal of the reapers to which Boaz invited Ruth (<080214>
Ruth 2:14).
Later it became customary to grind the wheat into flour (kemach), and, by bolting it with a fine sieve, to obtain the “fine flour” (coleth) of our English Versions of the Bible, which, of course, was then made into “bread”
(which see), either without leaven (matstsah) or with (lechem chamets Leviticus7:13).
Meal, both of wheat and of barley, was prepared in very early times by means of the primitive rubbing-stones, which excavations at Lachish, Gezer and elsewhere show survived the introduction of the hand-mill (see MILL;
Compare PEFS, 1902, 326). Barley (se`orim) has always furnished the principal food of the poorer classes, and, like wheat, has been made into bread (<070713>Judges 7:13; <430609>John 6:9,13). Less frequently millet (<260409>Ezekiel 4:9) and spelt (kuccemeth; see FITCHES) were so used. (For details of baking, bread-making, etc., see BREAD. III, 1,2,3.)
3. Leguminous Plants:
Vegetable foods of the pulse family (leguminosae) are represented in the Old Testament chiefly by lentils and beans. The pulse of <270112>Daniel 1:12 (zero`im) denotes edible “herbs” in general (Revised Version margin, compare <236111>
Isaiah 61:11, “things that are sown”). The lentils (`adhashim) were and are considered very toothsome and nutritious. It was of “red lentils” that Jacob brewed his fateful pottage (<012529>Genesis 25:29,34), a stew, probably, in which the lentils were flavored with onions and other ingredients, as we find it done in Syria today. Lentils, beans, cereals, etc., were sometimes ground and mixed and made into bread (<260409>Ezekiel 4:9). I found them at Gaza roasted also, and eaten with oil and salt, like parched corn.
The children of Israel, when in the wilderness, are said to have looked back wistfully on the “cucumbers .... melons .... leeks .... onions, and the garlic”
of Egypt (<041105>Numbers 11:5). All these things we find later were grown in Palestine. In addition, at least four varieties of the bean, the chickpea, various species of chickory and endive, the bitter herbs of the Passover ritual (<021208>
Exodus 12:8), mustard (<401331>
Matthew 13:31) and many other things available for food, are mentioned in the Mishna, our richest source of information on this subject. Cucumbers (qishshu’im) were then, as now, much used. The oriental variety is much less fibrous and more succulent.
and digestible than ours, and supplies the thirsty traveler often with a fine substitute for water where water is scarce or bad. The poor in such cities as Cairo, Beirut and Damascus live largely on bread and cucumbers or melons. The cucumbers are eaten raw, with or without salt, between meals, but also often stuffed and cooked and eaten at meal time. Onions
(betsalim), garlic (shummim) and leeks (chatsir) are still much used in Palestine as in Egypt. They are usually eaten raw with bread, though also used for flavoring in cooking, and, like cucumbers, pickled and eaten as a relish with meat (ZDPV, IX, 14). Men in utter extremity sometimes
“plucked saltwort” (malluah) and ate the leaves, either raw or boiled, and made “the roots of the broom” their food (<183004>Job 30:4).
4. Food of Trees:
In Leviticus19:23 f it is implied that, when Israel came into the land to possess it, they should “plant all manner of trees for food.” They doubtless found such trees in the goodly land in abundance, but in the natural course
of things needed to plant more. Many olive trees remain fruitful to extreme old age, as for example those shown the tourist in the garden of
Gethsemane, but many more require replanting. Then the olive after
planting requires ten or fifteen years to fruit, and trees of a quicker growth, like the fig, are planted beside them and depended on for fruit in the
meantime. It is significant that Jotham in his parable makes the olive the first choice of the trees to be their king (<070909>Judges 9:9), and the olive tree to respond, “Should I leave my fatness, which God and man honor in me, and go to wave to and fro over the trees?” (American Revised Version margin). The berries of the olive (zayith) were doubtless eaten, then as now, though nowhere in Scripture is it expressly so stated. The chief use of the berries, now as ever, is in furnishing “oil” (which see), but they are eaten in the fresh state, as also after being soaked in brine, by rich and poor alike, and are shipped in great quantities. Olive trees are still more or less abundant in Palestine, especially around Bethlehem and Hebron, on the borders of the rich plains of Esdraelon, Phoenicia, Sharon and Philistia, in the vale of Shechem, the plain of Moreh, and in the trans-Jordanic regions of Gilead and Bashan. They are esteemed as among the best possessions of the towns, and the culture of them is being revived around Jerusalem, in the Jordan valley and elsewhere throughout the land. They are beautiful to behold in all stages of their growth, but especially in spring. Then they bear an amazing wealth of blossoms, which in the breeze fall in showers like snowflakes, a fact that gives point to Job’s words, “He shall cast off his flower as the olive-tree” (<181533>Job 15:33). The mode of gathering the fruit is still about what it was in ancient times (compare <022720>
Exodus 27:20).
Next in rank to the olive, according to Jotham’s order, though first as an article of food, is the fig (in the Old Testament te’enah, in the New Testament suke), whose “sweetness” is praised in the parable (<070911>Judges 9:11). It is the principal shade and fruit tree of Palestine, growing in all parts, in many spontaneously, and is the emblem of peace and prosperity
(<050808>Deuteronomy 8:8; <070910>Judges 9:10; <110425>1 Kings 4:25; <330404>Micah 4:4;
Zec 3:10; 1 Macc 14:12). The best fig and olive orchards are carefully plowed, first in the spring when the buds are swelling, sometimes again when the second crop is sprouting, and again after the first rains in the autumn. The “first-ripe fig” (bikkurah, <232804>Isaiah 28:4; <242402>Jeremiah 24:2), i.e. the early fig which grows on last year’s wood, was and is esteemed as a great delicacy, and is often eaten while it is young and green. The late fig (te’enim) is the kind dried in the sun and put up in quantities for use out of
season. Among the Greeks and the Romans, as well as among the
Hebrews, dried figs were most extensively used. When pressed in a mold they formed the “cakes of figs” (debhelah) mentioned in the Old Testament (<092518>
1 Samuel 25:18; <131240>
1 Chronicles 12:40), doubtless about such as are found today in Syria and Smyrna, put up for home use and for shipment. It was such a fig-cake that was presented as a poultice (the King James Version “plaster”) for Hezekiah’s boil (<233821>Isaiah 38:21; compare <122007>2 Kings 20:7). As the fruit-buds of the fig appear before the leaves, a tree full of leaves and without fruit would be counted “barren” (<411112>Mark 11:12 f;
compare <232804>Isaiah 28:4; <242402>Jeremiah 24:2; <280910>Hosea 9:10; <340312>Nahum 3:12; <402119>Matthew 21:19; <421307>Luke 13:7).
Grapes (‘anabhim), often called “the fruit of the vine” (<402629>Matthew 26:29), have always been a much-prized article of food in the Orient. They are closely associated in the Bible with the fig (compare “every man under his vine and under his fig-tree,” <110425>1 Kings 4:25). Like the olive, the fig, and the date-palm, grapes are indigenous to Syria, the soil and climate being most favorable to their growth and perfection. Southern Palestine especially yields a rich abundance of choice grapes, somewhat as in patriarchal times (<014911>Genesis 49:11,12). J. T. Haddad, a native Syrian, for many years in the employment of the Turkish government, tells of a variety in the famous valley of Eshcol near Hebron, a bunch from which has been known to weigh twenty-eight pounds (compare <041323>Numbers 13:23). Of the grapevine there is nothing wasted; the young leaves are used as a green vegetable, and the old are fed to sheep and goats. The branches cut off in pruning, as well as the dead trunk, are used to make charcoal, or for firewood. The failure of such a fruit was naturally regarded as a judgment from Yahweh (<19A533>Psalm 105:33; <240517>Jeremiah 5:17; <280212>Hosea 2:12;
<290107>Joel 1:7). Grapes, like figs, were both enjoyed in their natural state, and
by exposure to the sun dried into raisins (tsimmuqim), the “dried grapes”
of <040603>
Numbers 6:3. In this form they were especially well suited to the use of travelers and soldiers (<092518>1 Samuel 25:18; <131240>1 Chronicles 12:40). The meaning of the word rendered “raisin-cake,” the American Standard Revised Version “a cake of raisins” (<100619>2 Samuel 6:19 and elsewhere), is uncertain. In Bible times the bulk of the grape product of the land went to the making of wine (which see). Some doubt if the Hebrews knew grape- syrup, but the fact that the Aramaic dibs, corresponding to Hebrew debhash, is used to denote both the natural and artificial honey (grape-
syrup), seems to indicate that they knew the latter (compare <014311>Genesis 43:11; <262717>Ezekiel 27:17; and see HONEY).
Less prominent was the fruit of the mulberry figtree (or sycomore) (shiqmah), of the date-palm (tamar), the dates of which, according to the Mishna, were both eaten as they came from the tree, and dried in clusters and pressed into cakes for transport; the pomegranate (tappuach), the
“apple” of the King James Version (see APPLE), or quinch, according to others; the husks (<421516>Luke 15:16), i.e. the pods of the carob tree
[kera>tion, keration]), are treated elsewhere. Certain nuts were favorite articles of food — pistachio nuts (boTnim), almonds (sheqedhim) and walnuts (‘eghoz); and certain spices and vegetables were much used for seasoning: cummin (kammon), anise, dill (the King James Version) (qetsach), mint ([hJdu>osmon, heduosmon]) and mustard ([si>napi, sinapi]), which see. Salt (melach), of course, played an important part, then as now, in the cooking and in the life of the Orientals. To “eat the salt” of a person was synonymous with eating his bread (Ezr 4:14), and a
“covenant of salt” was held inviolable (<041819>Numbers 18:19; <141305>2 Chronicles 13:5).