We are so drawn to things Biblical. I remember reading Anita Diamant's The Red Tent a few years ago and becoming absorbed in the long ago lives of Sarah, Rachel, Dinah and the other Old Testament women. I hated to let Diamant's novel go and for a while afterwards, I searched for similar books that would connect me with the time that is the touchstone for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Cooking with the Bible is such a book.
Highly original and comprehensive, it is the second book Anthony Chiffolo and Rayner Hesse have written together. Chiffolo is the editorial director of Praegar Books and has studied the classics and written books about the saints. Hesse is an Episcopal priest, a theologian, and, lucky for us, an accomplished chef.
The heart of the book is Part One: The Meals. Here, Joseph dines with his brothers, King David celebrates his nuptials, and Esther saves her people. There are eighteen such meals in total, including the wedding feast at Cana and a Passover meal. Each meal begins with the relevant Scripture passage, and is followed by discussions that put the events in context. Then there are the recipes, many accompanied by black-and-white photographs.
According to Scripture, Queen Esther (Haddasah in Hebrew) successfully petitioned King Xerxes to cancel plans to annihilate the Jews. As a result of Esther's intervention, Haman, the King's advisor who would have carried out the dreadful plans, was hanged. The Jews armed themselves and celebrated; even non-Jews converted to Judaism. Chiffolo and Hesse explain that this is the origin of Purim (Hebrew for "lots"). Purim, of course, is a joyous occasion but it is also a time for charity. They note that Esther's is one of only two books in the Bible written by women, the other being the Book of Ruth, and that it dates to the fourth century B.C.E. (around the time of Alexander the Great).
These delicious recipes come with the story of Esther: Chocolate chip challah, creamy artichoke soup, traditional potato latkes, sweet and sour sea bass, herb-basted turkey breast, vegetable cholent (a kind of casserole), lemon poppy seed cake, and hamentaschen (a dessert called "Haman's pockets," which emulates the three-cornered shape of the villain's hat). The authors recommend red wine for this feast, perhaps a syrah, which came originally from a Persian grape.
My husband and I decided to spend the Labour Day weekend at a cabin near Leading Tickles on Newfoundland's northeast coast. We brought the ingredients for some Biblical cooking based on this book. We are adventurous cooks who like to do Indian, Mexican, Thai, vegetarian, and seafood recipes. With three bald eagles soaring about above us and surrounded by mud flats rich with plovers, we prepared our food: Hummus with olive oil and pine nuts, a nice breakfast treat on pita bread; wilderness squash; Bathsheba's crispy baked potatoes with rosemary; endive salad with olives and clementines; and for a tasty dessert and snack through the weekend, sweet millet fruit balls.
The potatoes were lovely. Those in Biblical times did not eat potatoes, which are of South American origin, but the authors are not adverse to compromise since potatoes are popular in the Middle East today. Despite the honey it contained, the squash was savoury; I'd add more than the recipes calls for, but this is a matter of personal taste. The endive salad was most interesting; besides the olives and clementines, it called for radicchio, feta, capers, toasted almonds, garlic, and chicken stock (though we used vegetable). The flavours seemed at odds with each other at first, but then began to blend together and grew on us. I'd certainly have it again and it made a radicchio fan of me, a reluctant consumer of cold food.
It was fun talking about the origins of and stories associated with these foods as we ate. Wilderness squash is part of the chapter on John the Baptist and it turns out that the locusts Jesus' cousin dined on were plants, not insects. Scintillating conversation is essential to enjoyable dining and Cooking with the Bible nicely lays the groundwork for this.
My only quibble is that the recipe index is difficult to use. Recipes are divided by categories (for example: vegetables, fish, etcetera) and then listed by the name assigned to them. But I can't remember names like Judean Desert Salad or Salome's Honey-Carob Brownies; I think an ingredients index might have been more user-friendly. I would caution that the recipes are labour-intensive, as is always the case with meals made from scratch. So set time aside to work with this book, and make cooking with the Bible a special occasion.
Maura Hanrahan's new book is Domino: The Eskimo Coast Disaster.
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