Bible Bread

Not far from where I live, there is an old health food store called Pearly Gates.  The store itself is old.  Well...not like, it-used-to-be-a-general-store old, but it opened in 1968, and moved to it's current location in 1972, which in my opinion is old!  It is dark and crowded, and sells the most bizarre collection of stuff I've ever seen in one place.  The shop boasts a stock of 750 different spices, herbs and other unusual ingredients that I've never heard of, all in mismatched containers lining one wall.  They sell obscure health foods, wine and beer making ingredients, incense, natural cosmetics and medicines, and strange ointments and teas marked with Chinese and Japanese writings that I don't at all understand.  There is also a small collection of occult items, altar bells, and things that baffle my Southern Baptist mind.  I've often joked that any Hogwart's student could walk in and buy any and all of their potion ingredients there if they wanted to!  I think of it as the local Wiccan Super Store.  I absolutely love the place!  Sometimes, while the husband is visiting the local comic book shop to pick up his latest Green Lanterns, I walk down and peruse it's musty shelves, hoping to find some new and unusual thing to try.  I'm never disappointed!


While looking around the shop last Saturday, I picked up a few things.  Most of it was just bulk grains and tapioca balls, nothing to write home about, but the one new item I'd found to try was something called Bible Bread.

Wait, that doesn't sound grand enough.  You kind of have to imagine a loud, deep, echoing voice from the heavens saying the name: BIBLE BREAD!  Well, at least that's how I imagine the name being said when I look at the box.

Anyway...BIBLE BREAD is not really a bread-bread.  It's actually more of a cracker.  The box describes it as being "Inspired by a 3000 year baking tradition going back to the time of the Exodus, when the Israelites, in their flight from Egypt, prepared unleavened bread to sustain them on their journey to freedom."  Of course, it isn't the original recipe...oh no.  The makers of BIBLE BREAD added "Tasty, natural flavors mentioned in the bible."  Um...yum?  I don't know how I feel about that.  The bible talks about John the Baptist eating locusts, and you don't get much more natural than eating bugs.  Horf!

Luckily, the ingredients listed are completely bug free!  BIBLE BREAD is made of wheat flour, water, rye flour, corn starch, oat fibers, rice, oat, corn, sesame, salt and natural spices. 

The crackers themselves are largish, rectangular, and thin.  They remind me of Wasa bread or matzo or something like that, but much thinner.  They are very dry and brittle.  The box also mentions that BIBLE BREAD is all natural, with no preservatives, no artifical colors, low fat, cholesterol free, sugar free, dairy free and saturated fat free.

Unfortunately, the box doesn't say that they are also taste free, which would have been more useful.  I've literally eaten bits of cardboard that had more flavor than these crackers.  I'd say they are almost bitter in taste, but that would imply that you could actually taste something when you put them in your mouth.  I had to grab a mini Babybel to go along with the ones I had for a snack, just so that I could convince myself that it was actual food I was eating and not a deck of playing cards.  I didn't enjoy them very much, but I have a whole box of them that I'm going to have to figure out how to eat.  Such are the pitfalls of the adventurous food buyer, I suppose!

Actually, these might not be so bad if you used them to eat dips or melted cheese, or something that had a noticeable taste, but in my opinion, you'd be better off with chips or real bread.  The website also says that they have different flavors, so maybe the plain kind just don't pack enough punch.  I'll definitely try and finish the box, just so that they don't go to waste, but I'm not looking forward to it.

I wish I could have liked these, I really do.  I mean, if Moses and his people could live off of stuff like that for 40 years of desert wandering, you'd think they'd be good enough for me as an afternoon snack!


WEBSITE- BIBLE BREAD
SERVING SIZE: 2 crackers
CALORIES PER SERVING: 90
CARBS: 16
FLAVOR: 0