Peri megadim (Pleasant Fruit)
David de Silva
First Half of the 18th Century
Meat strengthens the body and provides it better nourishment than the other foods. Right after slaughtering it is very good and useful, but old meat is one of the causes of illness. The hard meat of animals such as turkeys [tarnegol hodu, “Indian doves”] should be eaten within twelve hours after their slaughter in the winter, while in the summer it should be after seven hours. Regarding the meat of harmful beasts and domesticated animals, their flesh is dry due to their natural heat but very much weakened. It is hard for the stomach, giving rise to bad and white-sticky phlegm. The meat of a fetus from a slaughtered animal, niniato in the vernacular, is bad and unfit for consumption [see m. ḥullin 4:1–5]. Concerning everything that comes from smaller beasts and animals, their meat will be wetter and thicker and heavier. The male of every species is warm, dry, and thin and is digested quickly and is of superior quality to that of the female, except for the meat of goats, regarding which the meat of the female is naturally better than that of the male. As for castrated animals, in their moisture they resemble females, while their heat is mingled, somewhere between the two. Thick and hard meat is fit [to be eaten] only for manual laborers. The soft and the moist have the opposite effect; however, the nourishment of the tongue is cold if people eat it with vinegar and mustard. Fat from organs does not digest well [lit. “does not cook well in the stomach”] and it goes down quickly from there, and as it descends it moistens the stomach and quickly becomes destructive, giving rise to white, sticky phlegm. Organs from the right side are better than those from the left in the area of the liver, which develops on natural heat, for the heat is stronger there than in its nearby surroundings. Legs are good and effective, in accordance with their curative powers, because they smooth the chest and the lungs and are good for a dry cough. They also help with wounds produced by burns, and they also cure plagues of the intestines.
Beef: its meat is cold and dry, and its nourishment is thick and generates thicker, hotter, corrupted blood, so it is harmful for sick people with black bile and also delicate people, while it is useful to manual laborers. The most select of this kind is milk-fed veal. A calf that has just finished nursing has less moisture than a nursing calf and is harder to digest. However, the blood that is derived from it is good and strengthens the natural heat, as it is similar to milk and due to the softness of its meat. Therefore, if its soup is golden [lit. “green”], one should cook it in vinegar. This will strengthen one’s stomach and intestines and is useful for driving away the red humor. As the animal grows and is further away from birth, it loses the moisture that it once had, on account of its closeness to the womb and the milk. However, the old meat is very bad because of its great dryness and the exhaustion of its heat, and therefore its meat is very hard to digest. It gives rise to coarse and thick blood, and if it is cooked in vinegar and coriander, the humor will be negated and stopped. The time when it is choicest is in the cool period near the beginning of the summer, but one who persists in eating it will develop the illnesses of leprosy and madness.
Nuts: There are three species that are called nuts [botnim]. One species is small, and it is found among us. Oil is produced from it; it is hot and dry by nature, and it is good for digestion of the stomach and is a cure for everything involving the cooling of the body. They are eaten as they are, or roasted, and oil is made from them, and they are useful for kidneys and chest pains, and for scorpion bites. There are also two other species, which the physicians say are male and female. In Arabic, the female kind is called halkhilioanas bandok [Corylus avellana, hazelnuts] while the male is apistokis [Pistacia vera, pistachio]. The female ones are more common than the male, while the tree that bears this fruit is similar in height to the date palm. They are good and healthy to eat, and its fruit makes lean-fleshed people fatter and is beneficial for people with diseases of the lungs and urine. It softens the chest and removes the phlegm easily, and physicians have praised it greatly. Its fruit is also beneficial for someone whose strength is too weak for sexual intercourse. The oil pressed from it is good for all illnesses of the tendons and general pains, and for people suffering from paralysis. Its unripe fruit, and similarly its wood when cooked, are good for all illnesses that are due to coldness.
Translated by
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Credits
David de Silva “Peri megadim (Pleasant Fruit)” (Manuscript, Jerusalem, First Half of the 18th Century). Published as: David de Silva, Peri megadim le-R. David De-Silva, rofe mi-Yerushalayim, ed. Zohar Amar (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2003), 132–137.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
