LAtimes: Scripture by the plateful
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
December 25, 2006

Hartsdale, N.Y. — GOD, apparently, is no Emeril.The Bible contains just one true recipe, for a bread of wheat, barley and lentils cooked over a fire made from burning human excrement. The ingredients were a direct revelation from the Almighty to the priest Ezekiel. The taste?

"Like moldy bean sprouts," says the Rev. Rayner W. Hesse Jr., an Episcopal priest. "You don't want to eat it. Never, ever. Let me emphasize that: Never."

OK, Ezekiel bread is out. But what about the stew that Jacob cooked in the Book of Genesis? It was a lentil stew, the Scriptures record, and it smelled so good that Jacob's brother, Esau, traded his inheritance for a bowl of it. Ancient scribes did not record Jacob's recipe. Hesse has always wished they had.

So four years ago, he set out to re-create Jacob's lentils — and other famous biblical meals — with the help of his partner, Anthony F. Chiffolo, the editorial director of a nonfiction publishing house. The couple's curiosity led them on a theological, historical and culinary quest that would expand their understanding of Scripture and introduce them to such novelties as curdled camel's milk and crispy lotus root. the rest