Sweet Manna
In the Old Testament book of Exodus, God fed the exiled Israelites with manna, which is described as “like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Today this term is used for the sugar-rich secretion of certain trees and also cer-tain insects. In the Middle East, the tamarisk tree produces enough manna that Bedouin nomads can collect several pounds in a morning, and go on to make halvah with it. The sugar alcohol mannitol (p. 662) owes its name to the fact that it was first found in and extracted from manna.