I had always heard the phrase "it's like manna from heaven" to denote "a good thing falling into your lap at random."  And "this tastes like manna," meaning "really delicious."  I even (being a good and true atheist) had a vague idea that manna was a thing from the Bible.  

But not until this recent Metafilter post did I learn that manna is a real thing!  In fact, you can buy it online.   No joke.

In Exodus, as the Jews wandered the desert for 40 years, they were sustained by manna which God provided for their food.  "It was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey."

(I'm going to stop right there and say, I have only the vaguest sense of what that means.  Wafers made with honey.  My mind keeps slipping to the thought of those Crème Wafers that come in three different colors, the waffle crisp long rectangles with the white frosting stuff in between.  And then I picture them being scattered all over the desert floor and I get confused.  And then I want some.  ANYWAY…)

After the dew cleared in the morning, the manna would appear.  "As small as the hoar frost on the ground."  

No one really knows what the biblical manna was.  Theories aside from tree sap include aphid juice, the emerging tendrils of psychoactive mushrooms, and "a kosher species of locust."  (I don't even want to know what that means.  I just don't.  Okay, I peeked!  Gross!)  Maybe the "psilocybin mushroom" theory explains why they wandered in the desert for 40 years, when it would only have taken a year to cross on foot at most.  They were all stoned out of their minds!

Manna had some interesting characteristics.  You could only gather the amount you needed for the day, because if you tried to keep it overnight, it would rot and become infested with maggots.  The only exception to this was the Sabbath.  Manna did not fall on the Sabbath, and you wouldn't have been allowed to gather it then, anyway.  Therefore you had to gather a double ration the day before.  And miraculously, this Sabbath portion would not rot.

The distribution of manna was not even; sometimes you could just reach out your hand and scoop it up, and sometimes you had to go hunting for it.  You could pound it into a bread-like substance, but even so, gentiles could not perceive it.  If they tried to catch it, it would slip through their hands.  Animals, however, could feed and drink manna.  In one tradition, the taste of manna depended on how old you were.  It tasted like "like honey for small children, like bread for youths, and like oil for the elderly" to quote Wikipedia.  

What is sold now as manna is usually the dried sweet sap from various trees.  (Which makes it related to maple syrup, if you think about it.)  

Once the Jews reached Canaan, the fall of manna ceased.  Although it's rumored that one last little bit of manna is saved in a pot, which is kept beside the Ark of the Covenant.

Photo credit: Flickr/erix!