The Promised Land

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