Fast food, this was not.

This is the second in a series of four posts:
(1) Sourdough bread: Flour and water. That’s it.
(2) Abraham and his guests
(3) Hospitality in ancient times
(4) Deuteronomy has no interest in an afterlife.

The most famous incident of breadmaking in the Bible comes from the story of Abraham and his visitors, in Genesis 18:

Note that he says “cakes,” not “bread.”  So this may not have been yeast bread; Sarah may have used some other form of leavening; one kneads dough for biscuits, also.

This visit had to last several hours, at least.  I am focused on the tasks the servant faced to “prepare” the calf.

We city folks today are generally squeamish about killing animals.

In contrast, in ancient times, everyone, or at least every man, had to serve as his own butcher.  The word “butcher,” as a noun, does not appear in the Bible.  And the same was true all along the American frontier.

This servant had to kill the animal; cut it open from head to toe; separate out the edible parts; cut out the entrails and throw them in the refuse heap; cut the meat from the bones, and then roast or boil the meat, while the guests waited.  Fast food, this was not.

My mother made the best fried chicken.  I loved it.  My father, not so much.

Whereas she grew up in a city in eastern Pennsylvania, he grew up on a farm in western Ohio.  In his teenaged years, whenever the family was to have chicken for supper, the task fell to him to go into the barnyard, find the largest bird, take it into the barn, and chop its head off.  He hated doing this.

He had no such compunctions about killing swine.