2020's Word of the Year

2020 word of the year- Release
Release control of what I can't control. Release worry. Release fear. Release...

Thursday, June 22

Who Taught the Israelite Women How to Cook?

Once in awhile I get a weird thought going in my head and it just snowballs. The other day I was thinking about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and eating manna everyday. My first thought was how boring it would be to eat the same thing day after day. My second thought was that it must have been nice to not have to cook. Right now the thought of never cooking sounds pretty good to me!  Although apparently they did bake and boil it according to Exodus 16:23. But after forty years wandering in the wilderness with nothing but manna and the occasional quail to eat, how did the younger women know how to cook?
Think about it, the older generation would have been gone. Who taught the younger generation how to make cheese and cook meat? I mean they had flocks of animals. They surely milked and butchered them. Who taught them how to prepare a garden and harvest it? And then they needed to know how to store their harvest aside from cooking it? As a woman I know that much of my knowledge is from observing my mother and grandmother in the kitchen. And a lot is passed down verbally, but still it's hard to explain how to make a gravy. You kind of need to be shown that. Take a bunch of teen girls to the supermarket and give them 10 different vegetables and fruits. Will they know what to do with them? I am guessing the average teen won't. Shoot, I'm not sure the average adult would!
As a Christian I do believe that God prepared certain people to hand down that knowledge. But this whole conversation in my head brought up another thought. Who is teaching our young people how to cook, how to grow their own food, how to survive without a restaurant? Last month on our trip to Colorado Springs my friend commented on how many restaurants there were. We talked about how so few people ate at home and even fewer actually cook meals. We pondered on how they could afford to eat out all the time. And it all brings me back to this...do these people even know how to cook? How to plan meals? How to make good food choices?
Would your child survive if they had to live on the food they prepared? Interesting thought, eh?

1 comment:

Deb said...

That was an interesting post! I agree with you and think most people don't really cook these days and are so used to eating out. Of course, I actually love to eat out...but I do know how to cook. :)

Thanks for a thoughtful post.