AFTER several weeks of wandering the desert after their escape from Egypt, the Israelites were hungry, the Bible says, and started grumbling.

So God conjured up two things for them to eat. In the evening, there were quails.

“In the morning,” the Book of Exodus says, “there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ ”

In ancient Hebrew, “what is it” can be rendered man-hu, a likely derivation of what this food has come to be called, manna.

The Bible describes it as being “like coriander seed,” and “white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.”