Leek

The leek is a culinary plant of Egypt, recalled by the Israelites in the wilderness as one of the foods they had eaten freely before the exodus.

Remembered from Egypt

In the wilderness, the people contrast their present diet with the abundance they once enjoyed in Egypt: "We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic" (Num 11:5). The leek appears in this list of common Egyptian fare alongside fish, cucumbers, melons, onions, and garlic, evoking a settled agricultural economy left behind for the manna of the desert.