Ancient Manna on Modern Menus

For my dear DU Foodies!

AFTER several weeks of wandering the desert after their escape from Egypt, the Israelites were hungry, the Bible says, and started grumbling.

So God conjured up two things for them to eat. In the evening, there were quails.

“In the morning,” the Book of Exodus says, “there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ ”

In ancient Hebrew, “what is it” can be rendered man-hu, a likely derivation of what this food has come to be called, manna.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/dining/09manna.html?ref=dining

:crazy:

Does this lend a new dimension to 'bugshit crazy'?

Dew is a rarity in this particular desert, though, occurring only when the relative humidity rises above 10% or so.

I need to ask some local tribal people if there are plants that combine dew and sap for something edible that won't stab people to death when they try to harvest it.

Everything out here has fangs, spines or poison or a combination of all three.