"Two Cups Jeremiah"

I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink.

--Matthew 25:35

Faith and food are close company in the Old Testament and the New--from that first bite in Eden, through the Passover meal and the manna from Heaven, to the feeding of the multitudes and the Last Supper. The resurrected Christ was specifically recognized by the breaking of bread at Emmaus (Luke 24:30, 35), by eating a piece of broiled fish in Jerusalem (Luke 24:42), and by cooking breakfast for Peter and his friends (John 21:9-12). Such scriptural sources and sauces have been tapped for a brand-new manual of Christian cookery, The Bible Cookbook (Bethany Press; $3.95). Author Marian Maeve O'Brien, food editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, teaches Sunday-school at Grace Episcopal Church in suburban Kirkwood, and her Biblical studies have well served her culinary know-how.

More than 500 recipes are included, each category with a prologue relating it to Biblical menus. Appetizers "almost exactly as we know them," says Author O'Brien, were an integral part of Biblical meals. In the countryside, "where Jesus was teaching, the housewife offered a bowl of vinegar and a piece of bread for dipping, while the guest waited for the table to be laid." An O'Brien appetizer: Burning

Bush, consisting of cream cheese balls rolled in chopped dried beef.

Prophet's Pulse. Author O'Brien seasons with teasers. Why, for instance, is poached trout called Trout Sisera? Most cooks without a concordance would not know where to look: Sisera's sorry story is in Judges 4 and 5, and the poaching of trout is presumably suggested by the water with which Jehovah swamped Sisera's "900 chariots of iron."

Many other recipe names are equally farfetched, e.g., Matthew Punch ("because it is such a nice punch for serving at Christmas time"), Pentecost Cake (black devil's food), and Prophet's Pulse (a vegetable and egg dish). For church suppers, Author O'Brien recommends what she calls a Scripture Cake: 4 1/2 cups I Kings 4:22 (flour)

1 cup Judges 5:25, last clause (butter)

2 cups Jeremiah 6:20 (sugar)

2 cups I Samuel 30:12 (raisins)

2 cups Nahum 3:12 (figs)

2 cups Numbers 17:8 (almonds)

2 tablespoons I Samuel 14:25 (honey)

1 pinch Leviticus 2:13 (salt)

6 Jeremiah 17:11 (eggs)

1/2 cup Judges 4:19 (milk)

Seasonings, II Chronicles 9:9 (spices)

Follow the directions of Solomon for bringing up a child, Proverbs 23:14; that is, "beat him with a rod."

Oysters Ad Lib. Few meals today, in a church or out of it, can match the menu of a priestly inauguration that is recorded as having taken place in Jerusalem between 73 and 63 B.C. First course: "Sea urchins, plain oysters ad libitum. Two sorts of mussels, thrush on asparagus, a fatted hen, a ragout of oysters and mussels, black and white chestnuts." Second course: "Udders of sows, a pig head, fricassee of fish and sow's udders, two kinds of ducks, boiled hares, a meal pudding."

"The record of the sweet served to finish this meal," writes Cook O'Brien regretfully, "has apparently been lost."

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