Ezekiel’s Bread

The week I left to go to my home province for Christmas break I was grocery shopping at Fortino’s and as I was walking by the frozen food section I noticed the word Ezekiel.  I was delighted to find a bread that is based on a recipe from the Bible in Ezekiel 4:9:  “Take also unto yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make yourself bread of it…”.

It’s made in California by a company called Food for Life which I thought explained why they freeze it to keep it fresh until it arrives to the consumer.  It’s made with each of the above organic sprouted grains, lentils and soybeans and has no flour.  Don’t ask me what sprouted grains are all about because I have no idea.  They make a plain bread specific to the recipe but I thought I would try the added cinnamon and raisin type.  It actually tastes really good for a multigrain bread.

When I came home last week after a month long holiday I was surprised to see a half loaf of Ezekiel bread still up in the cupboard just like I had absentmindedly left it.  At the time I thought that my husband must have bought another loaf (he came home two weeks earlier than me and the kids) or maybe that I hadn’t been so absentminded after all and had put it in the freezer and he had recently taken it out.  Today as I was putting away the mother-load of groceries the hubby picked up at Costco, I again noticed the loaf of Ezekiel bread and asked him about it.  He said that he hadn’t put it there.  As I continued to clean out the cupboard I found another slice of bread that I had made from last month rolled up in a bag and as you would expect it was completely covered in mold  (blech I could barely open the bag)

I don’t know if it’s the special combination of these amazing grains or the fact that they are sprouted or the technique the bakers use (supposedly preservative free) but not only is it completely mold-free, it’s actually kinda soft and fresh in the middle.  It feels like bread you may have left out on the counter for a couple of hours, hardly dry at all.  Anyways, the remainder of Ezekiel 4:9 says: “and make yourself bread of it, according to the number of the days that you shall lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days shall you eat of it.”  So maybe it is a special bread and it still has a life shelf of 360 days!!!