Cooking gold

Meaning

‘Teach them to cook gold in an alchemical fashion’ names an expectation the First Response rejects, not the service its writers offer. Their audience imagines rapid access to riches for display, war and other condemned uses. The writers instead insist on another path, through each person’s diligence and zeal in God.

The example of foolish virgins asking the wise for oil reinforces the criticism of merely demanding another’s treasure. The ordinary culinary verb kochen gives the false expectation a deliberately blunt form. It should not be confused with every technical use of coction elsewhere, nor turned into evidence that this 1661 response supplies an additional gold-making recipe.