Israelite cuisine was adherent to the dietary restrictions and guidelines of Yahwism and its later-developed forms: Judaism and Samaritanism. There was a considerable continuity in the main components of the diet over time, despite the introduction of new foodstuffs at various stages. The food of ancient Israel was similar to that of other Mediterranean cuisines of the time.
Sources
Information about the food of the ancient Israelites is based on written sources,
The Bible provides names of plants and animals that were used for food, such as the lists of
leaving Egypt (Numbers 11:5). These lists indicate the potential foods that were available, but not necessarily how regularly the food was eaten or how significant it was in the cuisine, which needs to be derived from other sources.[1][2]
Archaeological remains include the items used for the production of food, such as
olive presses, stone and metal implements used in the preparation of food, and amphorae, jars, storerooms and grain pits used for storage. Animal bones provide evidence of meat consumption, the types of animals eaten, and whether they were kept for milk production or other uses, while paleobotanical remains, such as seeds or other carbonized or desiccated plant remains provide information about plant foods.[1]
Using both written and archaeological data, some comparisons can be drawn between the food of ancient Israel and its neighbors. Although there is much information about the foods of
ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the inferences that can be made are limited due to differences in topography and climate; Israelite agriculture also depended on rainfall rather than the river-based irrigation of these two civilizations, resulting in the preference for different crops. Ugarit and Phoenicia were closer neighbors of ancient Israel, and shared a topography and climate similar to that of ancient Israel. Thus, conclusions about the food and drink in ancient Israel have been made with some confidence from this evidence.[1][3]
History
Significant milestones in the availability and development food production characteristic of Israelite cuisine occurred well before the Israelite period. On the other hand, vestiges of the cuisine and the practices associated with it continue to resonate in later
einkorn and emmer, and two-row barley, in the earliest levels of digs at Jericho, one of the first cities in the world.[6]
During the
large pottery containers, indicative of settled peoples, appear in the archaeological record. Date palm cultivation began in the Jordan River Valley, and the earliest date pits have been discovered at Ein Gedi by the Dead Sea. In the Golan, olives trees were grown and olive oil was produced there.[7]
Bronze Age collapse of urban culture, there was an increase in herding and the disappearance of smaller agricultural communities.[7]
Israelite period
The Israelite presence emerged during the
Sea Peoples arrived at roughly the same time and settled in the coastal regions. Pastoralism and animal husbandry remained important, and walled open spaces in villages that probably served as paddocks have been discovered. The construction of terraces in the hills, and of additional plastered cisterns for water storage, enabled more cultivation than before. Storage pits and silos were dug into the ground to hold grain. Under the united Israelite monarchy, central store cities were built, and greater areas of the northern Negev came under cultivation. The Gezer agricultural calendar, detailing the crops that were raised, dates from this period.[7]
After the
division of the Israelite kingdom, Jerusalem and a number of other cities expanded, supported by the surrounding villages and farms. These were called “daughters of” the major towns in the Hebrew Bible (for example, Josh 17:11 and Josh 15:47). Large food storage facilities and granaries were built, such as the city of Hazor. During the later Iron Age (Iron Age II) period, roughly the same period as the Israelite and Judean monarchies, olive oil and wine were produced on a large scale for commerce and export, as well as for local consumption.[7]
The ancient Israelites depended on bread, wine and oil as the basic dietary staples
Samaria and Arad ostraca.[10] Written and archaeological evidence indicate that the diet also included other products from plants, trees and animals. Seven basic agricultural products, called the Seven Species, are listed in the Bible: wheat, barley, figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates, and dates (Deut 8:8).[4] The Bible also often describes the land of Israel as a land "flowing with milk and honey" (for example, Exod 3:8).[11]
The cuisine maintained many consistent traits based on the main products available from the early Israelite period until the
The symbolic food of the ancient Israelites continued to be important among
Jewish Diaspora. Bread, wine, and olive oil were seen as direct links to the three main crops of ancient Israel—wheat, grapes, and olives. In the Bible, this trio is described as representing the divine response to human needs (Hosea 2:23–24) and particularly the need for the seasonal rains vital for the successful cultivation of these three crops. (Deuteronomy 11:13–14).[12] The significance of wine, bread and oil is indicated by their incorporation into Jewish religiousritual, with the blessings over wine and bread for Shabbat and holiday meals and at religious ceremonies such as weddings, and the lighting of Shabbat and festival lights with olive oil.[4][13]: 22–23 [14]
Characteristics
The daily diet of the ordinary ancient Israelite was mainly one of bread, cooked grains, and legumes. Bread was eaten with every meal. Vegetables played a smaller, but significant role in the diet. Legumes and vegetables were typically eaten in
sheep’s milk when it was available in the spring and summer, and ate butter and cheese. Honey, both from bees and date honey
, was also eaten.
Figs and grapes were the fruits most commonly eaten, while dates, pomegranates, and other fruits and nuts were eaten more occasionally. Wine was the most popular beverage and sometimes other
Game, birds, eggs, and fish, especially fresh and saltwater fish, were also eaten, depending on availability. Non-kosher fish consumption was also very common until the first century CE.[13]: 22–24 [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]
Most food was eaten fresh and in season. Fruits and vegetables had to be eaten as they ripened and before they spoiled. People had to contend with periodic episodes of hunger and famine; producing enough food required hard and well-timed labor, and the
climatic conditions resulted in unpredictable harvests and the need to store as much food as possible. Thus, grapes were made into raisins and wine; olives were made into oil; figs, beans, and lentils were dried; and grains were stored for use throughout the year.[9]
An Israelite meal is illustrated by the biblical description of the rations that Abigail brought to David’s group: bread loaves, wine, butchered sheep, parched grain, raisins, and fig cakes (1 Samuel 25:18).[3][24]
Foods
Grains and bread
Grain products constituted the majority of the food consumed by the ancient Israelites. The staple food was bread, and it was such a vital part of each meal that the Hebrew word for bread, lehem, also referred to food in general. The supreme importance of bread to the ancient Israelites is also demonstrated by how Biblical Hebrew has at least a dozen words for bread, and bread features in numerous Hebrew proverbs (for example, Proverbs 20:17, Proverbs 28:19).[14][25] Bread was eaten at just about every meal and is estimated to have provided from 50 to 70 percent of an ordinary person’s daily calories. The bread eaten until the end of the Israelite monarchy was mainly made from barley flour; during the Second Temple period, bread from wheat flour become predominant.[12][14]
Porridge and gruel were made from ground grain, water, salt, and butter. This mixture also formed the basis for cakes, to which oil, called shemen, and fruits were sometimes added before baking.[26]
The Israelites cultivated both wheat and barley; these two grains are mentioned first in the biblical list of the Seven Species of the land of Israel and their importance as food is also seen in the celebration of the barley harvest at the festival of Shavuot and of the wheat harvest at the festival of Sukkot.[10]
Barley (hordeum vulgare) was the most important grain during the biblical period, and this was recognized ritually on the second day of Passover in the Omer offering, consisting of barley flour from the newly ripened crop. Furthermore, its significance to Israelite society, not only as a source of food, is illustrated by the biblical method for measuring a field by the amount of barley (rather than of wheat) with which it could be sown.[28]
Barley was initially predominant because it matured earlier and tolerated harsher conditions than wheat, growing in areas with less rainfall and poorer soils, such as northern Negev and the hill country.
Two-rowed barley was the older, hulled form; six-rowed barley was unhulled and easier to thresh, and, since the kernels remained intact, store for longer periods. Hulled barley was thus the prevalent type during the Iron Age, but gruels made from it must have had a gritty taste due to the barley’s tough outer layers.[28]
Bread was primarily made from barley flour during the Iron Age (Judges 7:13, 2 Kings 4:42), as barley was more widely and easily grown, and was thus more available, cheaper, and could be made into bread without a leavening agent[4] even though wheat flour was regarded as superior.[10] It was presumably made from dough that was a simple mixture of barley flour and water, divided into small pieces, formed by hand into round shapes, then baked.[28] However, barley declined as the staple from the biblical period to a poverty food by the end of the Second Temple period, and by the Talmudic era, it was regarded mostly as animal fodder.[28]
Wheat
Emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) was initially the most widespread variety of wheat, as it grew well in the warm climate and was resistant to fungal rot. It was high yielding, with large grains and relatively high amounts of gluten, and bread made from emmer wheat flour was thus fairly light in texture. However, emmer required time-consuming pounding or roasting to remove its husk, and during the Iron Age, durum wheat (Triticum durum), a descendant of emmer, gradually replaced emmer and became the favored grain for making fine flour. Durum grew well in the rich soil of the larger valleys of the central and northern areas of the country, where rainfall exceeded 225 millimeters per year, was higher yielding than emmer, and its grains released more easily from the chaff. It could therefore be separated from the husk without roasting or pounding first, thus reducing the work required for threshing, and also leaving most of the grains whole, which was better for longer storage.[10][29]
However, durum is a hard grain and was difficult to grind with the early hand-held grindstones. The flour also had to be sifted repeatedly to obtain fine flour (such as the solet required in the Temple offerings). Thus, durum was primarily used for porridges, or parboiled and dried, or roasted and boiled, and barley flour continued to be used for making bread until another hybrid of emmer, common or "bread" wheat (Triticum aestivum) replaced barley as the primary grain after the Greek conquest of the land of Israel; this together with durum wheat, became widespread during the Greco-Roman period, constituting the bulk of the grain crop by the end of the Second Temple period. The introduction of common wheat, which contained more starch and had a higher level of gluten, spread the use of wheat for bread-making and led to the production of loaves that were more lightly textured than barley and durum wheat breads.[30]
Preparation of grains
A series of developments in technology for
threshing-board, which was pulled over the stalks by oxen, left most of the grain kernels intact and enhanced their storage time. Numerous threshing floors and threshing boards have been discovered at archaeological sites of ancient Israel.[6]
Once separated from the stalks, the grain was used in a number of ways: Most simply, unripe kernels of grain were eaten fresh, particularly in the spring, before ripe grain was available, and both unripe and ripe grain was roasted over fire for immediate use. Ripe grains of wheat were also
parboiled and dried, like modern bulgur, and then prepared as porridge. Whole or cracked grain was also used in stews and to make gruel. Most frequently, grains were ground into flour to prepare bread.[4][25]
Bread making
Bread was the main source of nourishment in biblical times, and making bread was a daily activity:[14]
Bread-making began with the
rotary or beehive quern, appeared during the early Persian period.[10][14] After the grain was milled into flour, it was mixed with water and kneaded in a large trough. For dough made with wheat flour, starter, called seor, was added. The starter was prepared by reserving a small portion of dough from a previous batch to absorb the yeasts in the air and thus help leaven the new dough. Seor thus gave the bread a sourdough flavor.[14]
Once prepared, the dough could be baked in various ways: Originally, the dough was placed directly on the heated stones of a cooking fire or in a
First Temple, two types of oven were used for baking bread: the jar-oven, and the pit-oven. The jar-oven was a large pottery container, narrowing into an opening toward the top; fuel was burned on the inside to heat it and the dough was pressed against the outside to bake. The pit-oven was a clay-lined excavation in the ground in which the fuel was burned and then pushed aside before the loaves were baked on the heated surface. People also began placing a convex dome, initially earthenware and later metal, over the pit-oven and cooking the flatbreads on the dome instead of on the ash-covered surface; this type of oven is probably what was meant by the biblical machabat, often translated as "griddle".[14]
The Persians introduced a clay oven called a tanur (similar to the Indian tandoor), which had an opening at the bottom for the fire, and through which the bread was placed to be baked on the inner wall of the upper chamber from the heat of the oven and ashes after the flames had died down. This continued to be the way in which Yemenite Jews baked bread until modern times. The remains of clay ovens and fragments of bread trays have been found in several archaeological excavations.[4][25] All these methods produced only thin loaves, and the custom was thus to breakbread rather than cut it. The bread was soft and pliable and used for dipping and sopping up gravies and juices.[4][25]
The Romans introduced an oven called a furn (purni in
stone-lined oven with a bottom on which the dough or baking sheet was placed. This provided a major advance in bread and pastry baking, and made the baking of much thicker loaves possible.[14]
A variety of breads were produced. Probably most common were unleavened flat loaves called ugah or kikkar.[10] Another type was a thin wafer, known as a rakik. A thicker loaf, known as hallah, was made with the best-quality flour, usually for ritual purposes.[4][14]
Bread was sometimes enriched by the addition of flour from legumes (Ezekiel 4:9). The
Hallah 2:2) mentions bread dough made with fruit juice instead of water. The sugar in the juice, interacting with the flour and water, provided some leavening and sweetened the bread.[2] The Israelites also sometimes added fennel and cumin to bread dough for flavor and dipped their bread in vinegar (Ruth 2:14), olive oil, or sesame oil for extra flavor.[4]
Broad beans, chickpeas, and lentils are the only legumes mentioned in the Bible but lentils, broad beans, chickpeas,
Ketubot 5:8), by which it is estimated that legumes supplied 17% of daily calories at that time.[31]
Lentils were the most important of the legumes and were used to make pottages and soups, as well as fried lentil cakes called ashishim, such as those that King David is described as distributing to the people when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem.[32] According to Tova Dickstein, a researcher at Neot Kedumim in Israel, ashishim were honey-dipped pancakes made from crushed red lentils and sesame seeds.[33]
Stews made of lentils or beans were common and they were cooked with onion, garlic, and leeks for flavor. Fresh legumes were also roasted, or dried and stored for extended periods. They were then cooked in a soup or a stew. The Bible mentions roasted legumes (2 Samuel 17:28), and relates how Jacob prepared bread and a pottage of lentils for Esau (Genesis 25:29–34).[15][31]
Vegetables
Vegetables are not found often in the archaeological record, and it is difficult to determine the role that they played, because plant foods were often eaten raw or were simply boiled, without requiring special equipment for preparation, and thus barely leaving any trace other than the type of food itself.[34]
Vegetables also are not mentioned often in the written record, and when the Bible does mention them, the attitude is mixed: sometimes they are regarded as a delicacy, but more often, they were held in low esteem (for example, (Proverbs 15:17, Daniel 1:11–15).[31][35]
Vegetables were perhaps a more important food at the extremes in society: the wealthy who could afford to dedicate land and resources to grow them, and the poor who depended on gathering them in the wild to supplement their meager supplies. More people may have gathered wild plants during famine conditions.[31]
Vegetables that were commonly eaten included leeks, garlic, onions, black radishes, melons (sometimes misidentified as the cucumber) and watermelons.[36] Other vegetables played a minor role in the diet of the ancient Israelites. Field greens and root plants were generally not cultivated and were gathered seasonally when they grew in the wild.[35] Leafy plants included dandelion greens and the young leaves of the orach plant.[26][35]
Leeks, onions, and garlic were eaten cooked in stews, and uncooked with bread, and their popularity may be indicated by the observation in the Bible that they are among the foods that the Israelites yearned for after leaving Egypt.[26][37]
Gourds and melons were eaten raw or flavored with vinegar. Black radishes were also eaten raw when in season during the autumn and winter. The Talmud mentions the use of radish seeds to produce oil and considered eating radishes to have health benefits.[37]