3θ HEBREW LIFE AND CUSTOM
appear to have been somewhat thicker than the modem
Passover cakes, since they required to be turned in baking.1
The modem Passover cakes would perhaps have been
called r,kikim.z What sort of cake is denoted by halla is
ιmcertain, possibly some sort of perforated cake or biscuit?
Bread was baked in an oven,4 or on a girdle,5 or on hot
stones.6 Leavened bread naturally took longer to make
than unleavened. The story of the baking by the Israelites
of the ιmleavened dough which they brought out of
Egypt7 is clearly aetiological, and due to an attempt to
connect the feast of unleavened bread with the Exodus.
It is, however, very remarkable that the narrator saw
nothing unusual in first mixing meal into dough and after-
wards adding the leaven. The leavening in this connexion
is in accordance with a method still used in Europe,
viz. the mingling with the fresh dough of a piece of the
fermented dough from the last baking. Two terms are
used to denote leaven, hâmës* and se,δrS That they were
not synonymous may be inferred from their occurrence
together in the same , context, but we cannot decide with
certainty how they differed. The former {hâmës) probably
refers to the method of leavening mentioned above. Since
we find the latter (∕,or) associated with debhash, honey,10
it may be that some mixture containing honey or grape-
juice was sometimes used to promote fermentation. At
any rate the taste of manna is compared to that of some
sort of sweetened flat cake,11 and what appears to have
been a kind of pancake cooked in liquid, presumably oil,
was made by Tamar in order to tempt the appetite of her
malingering and rascally half-brother Amnon.12 The home
baking was done sometimes by the women, sometimes by
3
5
7
»
Hos. vii. 8.
2 Sam. vi. 19.
Ezek. iv. 3.
Exod. xii. 34, 39.
1 Exod. xxix. 2, 23 ; Num. vi. 15.
4 Lev. xxvi. 26.
6 I Kings xix. 6.
, Exod. xii. 15, xiii. 3, 7 ; Amos iv.
Exod. xiii. 7 ; Deut. xvi. 4; Exod. xii. 15, 19.
5∙
,0 Lev. ii. ɪɪ.
“ Exod. xvi. 31.
n 2 Sam. xiii. 8.
BAKING : OIL, HONEY, VEGETABLES 37
the men,1 and professional bakers or confectioners were of
both sexes.2
Oil and honey were used in cooking, but it is not quite
certain what is to be understood by the word translated
honey. It is possible that in some cases3 it denotes boiled
down fruit juice, but of this there is no proof. It is therefore
likely that honey is everywhere to be understood in the
natural sense of the word ; and, since there is no mention
of bee-hives or of apiculture, wild honey is implied.* Honey-
comb is definitely mentioned/ and also run honey.6
Although we may suppose that the staple food, other
than milk, was bread, it must have happened from time
to time that the produce of one year’s harvest was ex-
hausted before that of the next harvest was ready. Under
such circumstances a ‘ portion of green herbs ’7 was all that
the poor man could get. Some sort of mallow, and even
juniper root,8 was eaten by those who were famishing.
In this connexion it is interesting to recall that the late
PatriarchofAntioch stated when he VisitedCambridge that
his flock were reduced to digging up thistle roots in the
lack of all other food. In times of dearth the prophets of
Elisha’s time concocted a stew of wild vegetables,9 into
which wild gourds {pakkuôth sadhe) had been put in mis-
take for kishshû’îm—some sort of cucumber or gourd10—a
mistake which recalls the not uncommon confusion in
modem times between poisonous fungi and mushrooms.
It is noteworthy that the Hebrew géphen denotes ‘ bine ’ as
well as ‘ vine ’.
Certain vegetables, e.g. gourds or cucumbers,1 ɪ were
’ Gen. xviii. 6, xix. 3. * Gen. xl. ɪ ; ɪ Sam. viii. 13.
3 e.g. Gen. xliii. ɪɪ ; Ezek. xxvii. 17 ; Jer. xli. 8.
4 Judges xiv. 8 ; ɪ Sam. xiv. 25, 27 ; Isa. vii. 22 ; Deut. xxxii. 13 ;
Ps. Ixxxi. ɪ 6.
5 I Sam. xiv. 27; Cant. v. ɪ. 6 ɪ Kings xiv. 3.
7 Prov. XV. 17. 8 Job xxx. 4.
’ 2 Kings iv. 38, 39. ” Num. xi. 5.
h The cultivation of such vegetables in Palestine is certain from
Isa. i. 8 ; cf. Baruch vi. 70.