The Varied Tastes of Manna

The rabbis say that manna tasted like whatever the Israelites wanted it to taste like. If you were craving chocolate that day, your manna tasted like pain au chocolat; if your palate was set for savory, the manna tasted like broccoli quiche or mushroom crepes. (There were a few exceptions: as Rashi, the eleventh-century interpreter of scripture, noted, manna could not taste like leeks, onions, cucumbers, watermelons, or garlic, because those five foods might hurt nursing mothers.)

It was not until I was about twenty-five that I realized this teaching about manna’s infinite…