Pottage was often made of lentile, and is so made at this day. Dr. Shaw says that they are cooked like beans, which they very much resemble, “dissolving easily into a mass, and making a pottage of a Chocolate color.”
In India this sort of food is considered so cheap and common that it represents, in proverbial speech, anything that is worthless. “The fellow has sold his land for pottage”; that is, for an insignificant consideration. “The learned one has fallen into the pottage-pot”; that is, the wise man has done what was not expected of him—a mean thing. “He is trying to procure rubies by pottage”; that is, he wishes to get great things by small means (Roberts). These expressions illustrate the despicable conduct of Esau, who sold his priceless birthright for a mess of mean food, the emblem of worthlessness.