From the sources
Bereishit 18:7 says that Avraham took a “calf, tender and good” and prepared it for the angels. Rashi reads each word “calf”, “tender” and “good” separately and says that it means that Avraham slaughtered 3 head of cattle in order to give each of the angels a tongue cooked with mustard.
This really emphasises how generous Avraham was. A tongue each is already an enormous amount of food. Not to mention the rest of the animal, which could not be refrigerated, but would have needed to be salted in order to be preserved in those days. Or maybe Avraham give that away as well, I am not aware of a source.
How to eat it
Serve tongue with mustard. This is what I did last year. But I only made 2 tongues, and it easily served 9 people. I was also struck by the fact that I could go into the kosher section of the supermarket and buy the tongue all ready to cook in a plastic bag. Avraham, on the other hand, needed to catch the calf, shecht it, salt it, cut it up, and then cook it.
This really gives you some idea of how generous Avraham was. The main idea is to serve lots of yummy food to lots of people this week. And I would add that many people cannot stomach even the idea of eating tongue, so it would be a good idea to have other things available as well.
Rabbi Rosenberg in his MP3 series Chumash and Rashi Explained offers a wonderful insight into how generous a person should be as a host. He says that every guest has a problem when they are being served. If they eat every morsel on their plate, it might look like the host did not serve them enough. But if they leave some of the food, it may appear to the host that they do not like the food. Rabbi Rosenberg says that we learn from Avraham how to solve this problem. A host should give SO MUCH FOOD that it is OBVIOUS to the guest that they are not supposed to eat it all. This is what Avraham did when he served his guests.
My dear husband added that as this week’s Parsha is the main one to feature Avraham’s nephew Lot, this would be a good week to have Lots of food!
