Cook

Cook (male, טִבָּח, tabbach', 1Sa 9:23-24; female, טִבָּחָה, tabbachah', 8:3, both properly a slayer), a person employed in families of rank to perform culinary service. Cooking (בִּשֵּׁל, bashhel), however, among the Hebrews (at least in early times) was generally done by the matron of the family, even though she were a princess (Ge 18:2-6; Jg 6:19).' Among the Egyptians the cook was a professional character. (See Wilkinson's Ancient AEyptians, 1:174, abridgm.) The process of cooking seems to have been very expeditiously performed (Ge 27:3-4,9-10), and all the flesh of the slain animal, owing to the difficulty of preserving it in a warm climate, was commonly cooked at once, which is the custom of the East at the present day. (See Rosenmüller, Morgenl. 2:117; Thomson, Land and Book, 2:162.) See FOOD. The Assyrian monuments lately discovered by Layard and Botta contain similar delineations of eunuchs cooking over charcoal braziers, and engaged in other culinary operations, often attended by a servant with a fly-flap. See BAKE; see CRACKNEL.

"As flesh-meat did not form an article of ordinary diet among the Jews, the art of cooking was not carried to any perfection; and, owing to the difficulty of preserving it from putrefaction, few animals (other than sacrifices) were slaughtered except for purposes of hospitality or festivity. The proceedings on such occasions appear to have been as follow: On the arrival of a guest, the animal, either a kid, lamb, or calf, was killed (Ge 18:7; Lu 15:23), its throat being cut so that the blood might be poured out (Le 7:26); it was then flayed, and was ready either for roasting (צָלָה) or boiling (בָּשִׁל); in the former case the animal was preserved entire (Ex 12:46), and roasted either over a fire (Ex 12:8) of wood (Isa 44:16), or perhaps, as the mention of fire implies another method, in an oven, consisting simply of a hole dug in the earth, well heated, and covered up (Burckhardt, Notes on Bedouins, 1:240). The Paschal lamb was roasted by the first of these methods (Ex 12:8-9; 2Ch 35:13). Boiling, however, was the more usual method of cooking, both in the case of sacrifices, other than the Paschal lamb (Le 8:31), and for domestic purposes (Ex 16:23), so much so that בָּשִׁל, bashal', to cook, generally included even roasting (De 16:7). In this case the animal was cut up, the right shoulder being first taken off (hence the priest's joint, Le 7:32), and the other joints in succession; the flesh was separated from the bones and minced, and the bones themselves were broken up (Mic 3:3); the whole mass was then thrown into a caldron (Eze 24:4-5) filled with water (Ex 12:9), or, as we may infer from Ex 23:19, occasionally with, milk, as is still usual among the Arabs (Burckhardt, Notes, 1:63), the prohibition 'not to seethe a kid in his mother's milk' having reference apparently to some heathen practice connected with the offering of the first-fruits (Exodus l. c.; 34:26), which rendered the kid so prepared unclean food (De 14:21). No cooking was allowed the Jews on the Sabbath (Ex 35:3). See