savory than honey,” and their bedchamber as “honeyfilled.” In the Old Testament, the promised land is pictured several times as a land flowing with milk and honey, a metaphor of delightful plenty that is itself used figuratively in the Song of Songs, where another bridegroom chants, “Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue…” Honey remained an important ingredient in both the food and culture of classical Greece and Rome The Greeks offered it in ceremonies to the dead and the gods, and priestesses of the goddesses Demeter, Artemis, and Rhea were called melissai: the Greek melissa, like the Hebrew deborah, means “bee.” The prestige of honey was due in part to its mysterious origins and to a belief that it was a little bit of heaven fallen to earth The Roman natural historian Pliny speculated in entertaining detail on honey’s nature Honey comes out of the air…At early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey…Whether this is the perspiration of the sky or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature It was more than 1,000 years before the true roles of flower and bee in the creation of honey were uncovered (p 663) In fact, honey making is the natural model for all human sugar production We too take sweet juices from plants and separate the sugars from the water Palm trees in South Asia, maple and birch trees in northern forests, agave plants and maize stalks in the Americas: all these have provided the sweet juices But none of them has been as generous as sugarcane Sweet Manna In the Old Testament book of Exodus, God ...Honey comes out of the air…At early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey…Whether this is the perspiration of the sky or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself,... the moisture of the air purging itself, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature It was more than 1,000 years before the true roles of flower and bee in the creation of honey were uncovered (p 663)... trees in northern forests, agave plants and maize stalks in the Americas: all these have provided the sweet juices But none of them has been as generous as sugarcane Sweet Manna In the Old Testament book of Exodus, God