The spices most in favor were cummin, dill, coriander, mint, mustard and salt. Cummin was threshed with a rod and with salt served as a sauce.
Pistachio nuts and almonds were popular as whets.
Salads were extensively known.
Honey was used in some cakes as a substitute for sugar. It was also eaten raw or with other articles of food, even fish.
Various artificial productions made from fruits and the exudations of trees and shrubs bore the title of honey, the best known of which was the boiled down juice of the grape, then called "d'bash," known to modern Arabs as "dibs."
"Butter and honey" and "milk and honey" are in Biblical language synonyms of the diet of prosperity.
The butter then used differed from our own product inasmuch as the hot sun to which the cream was exposed when being churned rendered the completed article more liquid. Even to-day in some parts of the Orient the butter served to visiting Europeans has to be manufactured especially for them from cold cream.
Cheese consisted of coagulated buttermilk, dried until hard and then ground.
Oil was made from various vegetables, but that of the olive was most esteemed.