Manna and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory

I own many cookbooks but rarely look to them for guidance. More often than not I prefer to garner recipe hints from the internet. Perhaps it is because they are not as frequently adorned with beautiful pictures that are impossible to emulate. The imagination of the meal rarely lives up to the reality.

And when it comes to food our imaginations do not always live up to our expectations. What we want to eat is not always what we can have.

I have been wondering as perhaps only a rabbi might why the Israelites complain so much about food. God provides them with manna. Our tradition suggests that this God-given sustenance tasted like whatever someone wanted it to taste like. “It tasted like rich cream.” (Numbers 11) the Torah offers. What more could they want? God gives them ice cream at every meal. And yet they cry, “If only we had meat to eat!”

How can this be? They never even tasted meat. The Israelites testify against themselves. “We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” How can they crave something they never even tasted? Are they imagining the meals they were forced to serve to their Egyptian taskmasters? Did they think freedom is synonymous with luxury? “We want what they have!”

I find myself singing, “There is no life I know/ To compare with pure imagination/ Living there, you'll be free/ If you truly wish to be.” In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (and I mean the version with Gene Wilder not the one with Johnny Depp), we learn many things. Everyone is overcome by desire. (Charlie’s lapse is rescued by his honesty.)

God responds to the Israelites’ complaints by providing them with a month’s supply of quail. And like Violet who blows up like a giant blueberry, they eat so much they become sick. Some commentators suggest that they were so overcome with “gluttonous craving” that they did not even bother to cook the meat and ate it immediately after slaughtering the birds. Their desires overwhelm their bellies.

Sometimes we imagine ourselves to be starving when we are not. Who among us has known true hunger or starvation? Still, we persist in describing ourselves as famished. “I am so hungry I could eat a horse!” Or more simply, “I am starving.” Even though I have said the latter on many occasions, such phrases are an insult to those who have experienced hunger and starvation. Our imaginations overwhelm our appetites.

And yet imagination is the secret ingredient to every meal. It is where the meal begins for the cook. “What will dinner look like? Could this lunch be great?” Imagination is where the meal finds its union with taste. Does it evoke remembrances? “It is almost like my grandmother’s.” Or does the meal open up new possibilities? “I did not think asparagus could taste so good.”

Jose Andres writes: Food is not just fuel! Food is history, culture, politics, art. It is nourishment for the soul. The simple fact of life is that we will be eating two or three meals a day every day until we die. We should all be experts at eating.” (Vegetables Unleashed: A Cookbook)

The Torah imagines God provides our food. “The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes.” It also hints that more rests in our own hands than we originally thought. The people had to work to transform the manna. Its taste is unleashed by their preparations. Manna provides not only sustenance but rich taste. Who does not like rich cream? Manna is like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Is the meal miraculously transformed? Or is it instead our hands that transform it?

Too often we think the secret of every meal is desire. “I want steak!” Instead, the secret is imagination. Do we believe we are content? Do we have faith we are sated?

Can we imagine a meal that is manna worthy?

Can we work to create nourishment for the soul as well as the body?