7 Verse 7.
The frying-pan]
marchesheth, supposed to be
the same with that called by the Arabs a
ta-jen, a shallow
earthen vessel like a
frying-pan, used not only to fry in, but
for other purposes. On the different instruments, as well as the
manner of
baking in the east, Mr. Harmer, in his observations on
select passages of Scripture, has collected the following curious
information.
"Dr. Shaw informs us that in the cities and villages of
Barbary, there are
public ovens, but that among the
Bedouins, who
live in tents, and the
Kabyles, who live in miserable hovels in
the mountains, their bread, made into thin cakes, is baked either
immediately upon the coals, or else in a
ta-jen, which he tells
us is a
shallow earthen vessel like a frying-pan: and then cites
the
Septuagint to show that the supposed pan, mentioned
Le 2:5,
was the same thing as a
ta-jen. The
ta-jen, according to
Dr. Russel, is exactly the same among the Bedouins as the ρηγανον, a
word of the same sound as well as meaning, was among the Greeks.
So the Septuagint,
Le 2:5:
if thy oblation be a meat-offering, baken
in a pan, (απο
τηγανου,)
it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
"This account given by the doctor is curious; but as it does
not give us all the eastern ways of baking, so neither does it
furnish us, I am afraid, with a complete comment on that variety
of methods of preparing the meat-offerings which is mentioned by
Moses in
Le 2:1-16. So long ago as Queen Elizabeth's time,
Rauwolff observed that travellers frequently baked bread in the
deserts of Arabia on the ground, heated for that purpose by fire,
covering their cakes of bread with
ashes and
coals, and turning
them several times until they were baked enough; but that some of
the Arabians had in their tents,
stones, or
copper plates, made
on purpose for baking. Dr.
Pococke very lately made a like
observation, speaking of
iron hearths used for baking their
bread.
"Sir
John Chardin, mentioning the several ways of baking their
bread in the east, describes these
iron plates as small and
convex. These plates are most commonly used, he tells us, in
Persia, and among the wandering people that dwell in tents, as
being the easiest way of baking, and done with the least expense;
the bread being as thin as a
skin, and soon prepared.
Another way
(for he mentions four) is by baking on the
hearth. That bread is
about an inch thick; they make no other all along the Black Sea
from the Palus Maeotis to the Caspian Sea, in Chaldea, and in
Mesopotamia, except in towns. This, he supposes, is owing to
their being
woody countries. These people make a fire in the
middle of a room; when the bread is ready for baking they sweep a
corner of the hearth, lay the bread there, and cover it with
hot ashes and embers; in a quarter of an hour they turn it: this
bread is very good. The
third way is that which is common among
us. The
last way, and that which is common through all Asia, is
thus: they make an oven in the ground, four or five feet deep and
three in diameter, well plastered with mortar. When it is hot,
they place the bread (which is commonly long, and not thicker
than a finger) against the sides, and it is baked in a moment.
"
D'Arvieux mentions another way used by the Arabs about Mount
Carmel, who sometimes bake in an oven, and at other time on the
hearth; but have a third method, which is, to make a fire in a
great
stone pitcher and when it is heated, they mix meal and
water, as we do to make
paste to glue things together, which they
apply with the hollow of their hands to the outside of the
pitcher, and this extremely soft paste spreading itself upon it
is baked in an instant. The heat of the pitcher having dried up
all the moisture, the bread comes off as thin as our
wafers; and
the operation is so speedily performed that in a very little time
a sufficient quantity is made.
"
Maimonides and the
Septuagint differ in their explanation of
Le 2:5; for that Egyptian rabbi supposes this verse speaks of a
fiat plate, and these more ancient interpreters, of a
ta-jen. But
they both seem to agree that these were two of the methods of
preparing the meat-offering; for Maimonides supposes the
seventh verse speaks of a
frying-pan or
ta-jen; whereas the
Septuagint,
on the contrary, thought the word
there meant a
hearth, which
term takes in an iron or copper plate, though it extends farther.
"The
meat-offerings of the
fourth verse answer as well to the
Arab bread, baked by means of their
stone pitchers, which are
used by them for the baking of
wafers, as to their cakes of bread
mentioned by
D'Arvieux, who, describing the way of baking among
the modern Arabs, after mentioning some of their methods, says
they bake their best sort of bread, either by heating an oven, or
a large pitcher, half full of certain little smooth shining
flints, upon which they lay the dough, spread out in form of a
thin broad cake. The mention of
wafers seems to fix the meaning
of Moses to these
oven pitchers, though perhaps it may be thought
an objection that this meat-offering is said to have been baked
in an oven; but it will be sufficient to observe that the Hebrew
words only signify a meat-offering of the oven, and consequently
may be understood as well of wafers baked on the
outside of these
oven pitchers, as of cakes of bread baked in them.
And if thou bring an oblation, a baked thing, of the oven, it shall be an unleavened cake of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil. Whoever then attends to these accounts
of the stone pitcher, the ta-jen, and the copper plate or iron
hearth, will enter into this second of Leviticus, I believe, much
more perfectly than any commentator has done, and will find in
these accounts what answers perfectly well to the description
Moses gives us of the different ways of preparing the
meat-offerings. A
ta-jen indeed, according to Dr. Shaw, serves
for a
frying-pan as well as for a baking vessel; for he says, the
bagreah of the people of Barbary differs not much from our
pancakes, only that, instead of rubbing the ta-jen or pan in
which they fry them with butter, they rub it with soap, to make
them like a honeycomb.
"Moses possibly intended a meat-offering of that kind might be
presented to the Lord; and our translators seem to prefer that
supposition, since, though the margin mentions the opinion of
Maimonides, the reading of the text in the sixth verse opposes a
pan for baking to a pan for frying in the seventeenth verse. The
thought, however, of Maimonides seems to be most just, as Moses
appears to be speaking of different kinds of bread only, not of
other farinaceous preparations.
"These oven pitchers mentioned by
D'Arvieux, and used by the
modern Arabs for baking cakes of bread in them, and wafers on
their outsides, are not the only portable ovens of the east. St.
Jerome, in his commentary on
La 5:10, describes an eastern oven
as a round vessel of brass, blackened on the outside by the
surrounding fire which heats it within. Such an oven I have seen
used in England. Which of these the Mishnah refers to when it
speaks of the women lending their ovens to one another, as well
as their mills and their sieves, I do not know; but the foregoing
observations may serve to remove a surprise that this
circumstance may otherwise occasion in the reader of the Mishnah.
Almost every body knows that little portable handmills are
extremely common in the Levant; movable ovens are not so well
known. Whether ovens of the kind which St. Jerome mentions be as
ancient as the days of Moses, does not appear, unless the ta-jen
be used after this manner; but the pitcher ovens of the Arabs
are, without doubt, of that remote antiquity.
"Travellers agree that the eastern bread is made in small thin
moist cakes, must be eaten new, and is good for nothing when kept
longer than a day. This, however, admits of exceptions. Dr.
Russel of late, and Rauwolff formerly, assure us that they have
several sorts of bread and cakes: some, Rauwolff tells us, done
with yolk of eggs; some mixed with several sorts of seed, as of
sesamum, Romish
coriander, and wild
garden saffron, which are
also stewed upon it; and he elsewhere supposes that they prepare
biscuits for travelling. Russel, who mentions this stewing of
seeds on their cakes says, they have a variety of
rusks and
biscuits. To these authors let me add Pitts, who tells us the
biscuits they carry with them from Egypt will last them to Mecca
and back again.
"The Scriptures suppose their loaves of bread were very small,
three of them being requisite for the entertainment of a single
person,
Lu 11:5. That they were generally eaten new, and baked
as they wanted them, as appears from the case of Abraham. That
sometimes, however, they were made so as to keep several days; so
the
shew-bread was fit food, after lying before the Lord a week.
And that bread for travellers was wont to be made to keep some
time, as appears from the pretences of the Gibeonites,
Jos 9:12,
and the preparations made for Jacob's journey into Egypt,
Ge 45:23.
The bread or
rusks for travelling is often made in the form of large
rings, and is moistened or soaked in water before it is used. In
like manner, too, they seem to have had there a variety of eatables
of this kind as the Aleppines now have. In particular, some made
like those on which seeds are strewed, as we may collect from that
part of the presents of Jeroboam's wife to the Prophet Ahijah,
which our translators have rendered
cracknels,
1Ki 14:3.
Buxtorf indeed supposes the original word
nikkuddim signifies biscuits, called by this name, either because they were
formed into little buttons like some of our gingerbread, or
because they were pricked full of holes after a particular manner.
The last of these two conjectures, I imagine, was embraced by our
translators of this passage; for
cracknels, if they are all over
England of the same form, are full of holes, being formed into a
kind of flourish of lattice-work. I have seen some of the
unleavened bread of the English Jews made in like manner in a net
form. Nevertheless I should think it more natural to understand
the word of biscuit spotted with seeds; for it is used elsewhere
to signify works of gold spotted with studs of silver; and, as it
should seem, bread spotted with mould,
Jos 9:5-12; how much more
natural is it then to understand the word of cakes
spotted with seeds, which are so common in the east! Is not
lebiboth,
in particular, the word that in general means rich
cakes? a sort
of which Tamar used to prepare that was not common, and furnished
Amnon with a pretence for desiring her being sent to his house,
that she might make some of that kind for him in the time of his
indisposition, his fancy running upon them; see
2Sa 13:2-8.
Parkhurst supposes the original word to signify
pancakes, and
translates the root
labab to move or
toss up and down: 'And
she took the dough, (
vattalosh,) and
kneaded (
vattelabbeb, and
tossed) it in his sight,
vattebashshel, and
dressed the cakes.' In this passage, says Mr. Parkhurst, it
is to be observed that is distinguished from to
knead,
and from to
dress, which agrees with the interpretation here
given.
"The account which Mr. Jackson gives of an Arab baking
apparatus, and the manner of
kneading and
tossing their cakes,
will at once, if I mistake not, fix the meaning of this passage,
and cast much light on
Le 11:35. "I was much amused by
observing the dexterity of the Arab women in baking their bread.
They have a small place built with clay, between two and three
feet high, having a hole in the bottom for the convenience of
drawing out the ashes, somewhat similar to that of a lime-kiln.
The oven, which I think is the most proper name for this place,
is usually about fifteen inches wide at top, and gradually grows
wider to the bottom. It is heated with wood, and when
sufficiently hot, and perfectly clear from smoke, having nothing
but clear embers at the bottom, which continue to reflect great
heat, they prepare the dough in a large bowl, and mould the cakes
to the desired size on a board or stone placed near the oven.
After they have kneaded the cake to a proper consistence, they
pat it a little,
then toss it about with great dexterity in one
hand till it is as thin as they choose to make it. They then wet
one side of it with water, at the same time wetting the hand and
arm with which they put it into the oven. The side of the cake
adheres fast to the side of the oven till it is sufficiently
baked, when, if not paid proper attention to, it would fall down
among the embers. If they were not exceedingly quick at this
work, the heat of the oven would burn their arms; but they
perform it with such amazing dexterity that one woman will
continue keeping three or four cakes in the oven at once, till
she has done baking. This mode, let me add, does not require
half the fuel that is made use of in Europe." See more in
HARMER'S
Observat., vol. i., p. 414, &c., Edit. 1808.