Cooking

Scripture contains much evidence of methods of cooking and types of food cooked in biblical times. Cooking was an essential part of sacrificial worship, as well as being a domestic necessity.

Cooks

1 Samuel 8:10–13 See also 1 Samuel 9:23–24

So Samuel spoke all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This will be the manner of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them to serve his own chariots and horses, and to run in front of his chariots. He will appoint some for himself as commanders of thousands and of fifties, and others to plow his ground, to reap his harvest, and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.

Cooking utensils

1 Samuel 2:13–14 See also Leviticus 2:7, Leviticus 6:28, Leviticus 7:9, Leviticus 11:35; Numbers 11:8; Ezekiel 11:3; Zechariah 14:20–21

or for the custom of the priests with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice, the servant of the priest would come with a three-pronged meat fork while the meat was boiling and plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

Cooking methods

Baking

Genesis 19:3; Exodus 16:23; Leviticus 26:26; 1 Samuel 28:24; Ezekiel 46:20

Boiling

Exodus 16:23 See also Numbers 6:19; 1 Samuel 2:13

He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”

Roasting

1 Samuel 2:15 See also Exodus 12:8–9; Deuteronomy 16:5–7; Proverbs 12:27; Isaiah 44:16, Isaiah 44:19

Even before the fat was burned, the servant of the priest would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Give the priest some meat to roast, because he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.”

Food cooked

Meat

Ezekiel 24:10 See also Genesis 27:3–19; Exodus 29:31; Leviticus 8:31; 1 Kings 17:6; Micah 3:3EXO Micah 23:19, Exodus 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21

Pile on the logs and kindle the fire; cook the meat well and mix in the spices; let the bones be burned.

Grain

1 Samuel 17:17 See also Joshua 5:11; Ruth 2:14; 1 Samuel 25:18; 2 Samuel 17:27–28; 1 Kings 17:10–16

One day Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

Stew

Genesis 25:29 See also 2 Kings 4:38–41

One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished.

Human flesh

Lamentations 4:10 See also 2 Kings 6:26–29

The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Cooked offerings

Leviticus 2:7 See also Leviticus 2:14, Leviticus 7:9, Leviticus 8:31; 2 Chronicles 35:13; Ezekiel 46:20, Ezekiel 46:24

If your offering is a grain offering cooked in a pan, it must consist of fine flour with oil.