Thanks so much for raising this point. It is not a simple matter!
In Ven Bodhi’s translations of DN 1 and DN 2, as you point out, āmisa is translated as “comestibles”. And as Seniya points out, if we render this as “comestibles”, we duplicate “food”, which is a translation of anna.
This particular use of āmisa would seem to be related to the usage we find in the Bhikkhuni Khandhaka (Kd 20 #96–92). There, āmisa is said to be placed in the bowl, which is significantly used here instead of the normal piṇḍapāta. But the discussion rapidly shifts to problems with the storage of excess āmisa. And while the stock passage at DN 1 and DN2 forbids storing of āmisa, the Khandhaka allows it, but only after there’s been sufficient effort to distribute it. Unfortunately, neither the commentary nor the sub-commentary define āmisa here.
In the commentary to DN 1, however, we find an extensive, and rather entertaining, discussion of this point. Unfortunately this is not included in Ven Bodhi’s translation of the commentary. The essence of the story is that a monk stores aside various foodstuffs in the expectation that they’ll come in handy. During the vassa, after the novice has offered the morning’s porridge, the monk complains that it’s hard to go for alms when the road is so muddy. He tells the novice to go on an errand for him instead—apparently he’s not concerned that the novice will find the road too muddy! He sends the novice back to his home village where he is to ask for some curd. Anyway, when the novice furnishes the stuff he likes, the monk ends up eating so much very delicious food that he gets a double chin (gīvāyāmaka), and people say he’s living like a lord, not like a monk.
The list of foodstuffs is given as follows:
- tila = sesame
- taṇḍula = rice
- mugga = mung
- māsa = bean
- nāḷikera = coconut
- loṇa = salt
- maccha = fish
- maṁsa = meat
- vallūra = dried meat
- sappi = ghee
- tela = oil
- guḷa = sugar
- bhājanādīni = plates, etc.
This list, and the story, give us a useful idea of what is referred to here. Rather than the normal piṇḍapāta, i.e. prepared food to be eaten immediately, āmisa seems to refer to storable foodstuffs, including raw foods or things used as ingredients, perhaps including utensils. That’s why they needed supplementing with curd. Such fresh foods are notably absent from the list (fish and meat being perhaps an exception). Āmisa here seems to echo both its original sense of “raw”, and also the sense of “luxurious, indulgent”.
I would suggest that the English “foodstuff” works pretty well as a translation here. Merriam-Webster:
a substance with food value; specifically, the raw material of food before or after processing
