All this came to me in that instant of tasting, all from the flavor of ripe strawberries on my tongue. Why, then, should I not treasure my memories of childhood feasts?
This experience gives me a great respect for my bread and meat. I want to taste of as many viands as possible; for when I sit down to a dish of porridge I am certain of rising again a better animal, and I may rise a wiser man. I want to eat and drink and be instructed.
Some day I expect to extract from my pudding the flavor of manna which I ate in the desert, and then I shall write you a contemporaenous commentary on the Exodus. Nor do I despair of remembering yet, over a dish of corn, the time when I fed on worms; and then I may be able to recall how it felt to be made at last into a man.
Give me to eat and drink, for I crave wisdom.
–Mary Antin, The Promised Land
O the wisdom that comes from eating!