In the culinary arts, fresh is paramount. Same-day freshness in fruits and vegetables, bread, and pasta is crucial. For a really special occasion, don’t even think of making spinach lasagna using those old, hard, dry noodles out of box, frozen spinach, hard dry cheeses, and out-of-the-can sauce. Instead, pick up just-made lasagna noodles and use fresh-picked spinach from the garden. Put that together with fresh bite-size mozzarella balls packed in water, fresh ricotta cheese, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese and a sauce made with fresh tomatoes, just-picked shallots, bay leaves, basil leaves and parsley, OK, maybe you have to use some dried thyme, marjoram, and oregano and maybe a can or two of tomato paste, but fresh is the name of the game when you are cooking for royalty.
Try a stir-fry of really fresh veggies and mushrooms. Then compare the taste of the same stir-fry using veggies and mushrooms that have passed their prime, meaning a few age spots here and there and smelling just a bit off. The difference is remarkable. Even with modem refrigeration, produce starts going bad the moment it is picked. So for those with a discriminating palate, the rule is always going with the freshest ingredients you can possibly get.
Now don’t get me wrong. When eating to live, I am a great lover of leftovers. They- vividly demonstrate God’s abundance. And for some food items, freshness is not an option. Aging or cooking might be important processing steps to chemically change the food, making it more palatable or more nutritious. But for most items, fresh is best.
Imagine the logistics of feeding and watering more than a million or so people and all their livestock while camped or wandering in the Sinai desert. Only God could pull that off. One of the miraculous solutions was the daily manna. It taught lessons of daily dependence on God and of the Sabbath as holy and special day, and with my obsessive fixation on freshness, I can relate to the disappointment of stinking, wormy manna, the next day. But read in Deuteronomy 8:1-9 about what the Lord had in mind for His chosen: “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land… in which you will lack nothing.
