What’s for Dinner? Restaurants Put Manna on the Menu

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Judging by the number of results returned in a search on Amazon.com, there is a lot of popular (and scholarly) interest in food from the Bible and the ancient world—whether it’s the scholar who recreated the recipe for an Assyrian stew from an ancient cuneiform tablet (he substituted a can of Guinness where the original called for lamb’s blood) to entire cookbooks devoted to menus for meals mentioned in the Bible (e.g., the dinner Jacob made for his father, Isaac, in order to steal Esau’s blessing, as well as the feast prepared to celebrate the return of the Prodigal Son in the famous parable from Luke’s gospel). And now, thanks to a few experimental chefs at New York City restaurants, Biblical “foodies” can see if they have a taste for manna, that miraculous food that sustained the children of Israel in the Sinai desert (Exodus 16; Numbers 11).

When the Israelites complained to Moses and Aaron that they were going to starve in the Sinai wilderness after leaving Egypt, God provided flocks of quail in the evening for meat, “and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground” (Exodus 16:13–14). When the Israelites saw the mysterious 026substance, they asked, “What is it?” (man-hu in Hebrew). So they called it manna, which was “like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31).

Psalm 78 calls manna the “grain of heaven,” but today many say it refers to a very earthy substance that occurs naturally in a number of varieties, usually in areas with very dry climates such as the Middle East. Some have identified Biblical manna as the dried sap of the desert-growing tamarisk tree or as the “honeydew secretion produced by scale insects that feed on the sap.”^a Other varieties of manna come from sweet-tasting beetle cocoons or dried up lichen.

As reported in the Dining and Wine section of The New York Times, Behroush Sharifi, a “New York dealer in rare spices and dried foods from the ancient Silk Road,” began importing manna in 2008 from a seller in Iran to share with his chef clients. So far it has been used for such eclectic menu items as a foie gras terrine with Marcona almonds, candied kumquats and toasted brioche finished off with manna and sea salt, as well as with charred apricots, fresh wasabi and kampachi—or even simply made into a syrup to mix with bourbon. The flavors and textures of manna are somewhat enigmatic, however, ranging from honey and brown sugar to citrus and even mint, both chewy and crunchy at the same time—an appealing ingredient for those who use it in their recipes because, according to one chef, “it makes the food intensely personal, because no two people taste manna the same way.”

Whether all this modern manna has any relation to Biblical manna remains a question.

Judging by the number of results returned in a search on Amazon.com, there is a lot of popular (and scholarly) interest in food from the Bible and the ancient world—whether it’s the scholar who recreated the recipe for an Assyrian stew from an ancient cuneiform tablet (he substituted a can of Guinness where the original called for lamb’s blood) to entire cookbooks devoted to menus for meals mentioned in the Bible (e.g., the dinner Jacob made for his father, Isaac, in order to steal Esau’s blessing, as well as the feast prepared to celebrate the return of the Prodigal […]