MEAL TO IMITATE FEASTS OF EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH

Maybe you've heard about the loaves and fishes, but what did Jesus and his disciples eat? What about the rulers and kings of the first centuries after Christ?

Food tells a lot about a people, and the youth at First Christian Church are learning about the earliest Christians by preparing their foods.

The church developed a feast of Biblical cuisine based on a menu centuries old. "Keeping the Feast" will offer a sampling of the foods that early Christians might have eaten based on recipes culled from a variety of cookbooks.

Donna Maguire, a member of the church, has helped to organize the second annual event. Her children are part of the church youth group.

"We tried to keep the menu as close as it could be to what they would have eaten," she said.

Maguire made a list of possible dishes to cook by sorting through her assortment of cookbooks and adapting some recipes. Some of the dishes are extremely simple to cook, with only four or five ingredients, she said.

At the same time, they aren't very attractive. They don't have roasted red peppers or tomatoes. "We've tried to make them a little more attractive and then similar to what we are used to eating now."

A sampling of the menu: Rolled grape leaves, herbed cheese, olives and dates, beef and barley soup, herb-grilled lamb, smoked fish, kabobs with chicken, leeks, squash and artichokes, baked squash with cinnamon and stone-baked apple tarts or sesame and almond candies.

The meal being served today would likely have been cooked for a big celebration, said Stephanie Curran, associate pastor. "Most people didn't get to eat meat every day. So this would have been special."

About 40 people are expected for the dinner Saturday evening at the church. Youth and parents have been preparing some of the dishes in advance chopping, mostly. They will gather Saturday afternoon for the final preparations.

The youth have been chopping leeks and onions. "We haven't gotten out the food processor," Maguire said. The group has realized just how difficult it would have been to cook without all the modern conveniences today, she added.

"Most of their food would have been cooked over an open fire," she said. "We know it would have taken a lot of time to prepare."

Servers will wear period dress loose tunics and wraps. "You could loosely call them costumes," said Curran. "We aren't going to follow all their customs. We aren't reclining on a couch and we'll use silverware, not our fingers."

A menu booklet for the meal explains how important food has been for God's people. "Food, drink and communal meals were so essential to physical life and to a sense of community that the authors of the Scripture employed them in symbolic ways to convey important truths about the spiritual life."

The booklet also offers references to Scripture about the foods being served.

Music will be played throughout the meal, first by a quartet of youth and some solos and then by the Children of Lear ensemble.

The money raised from the dinner will be used to help pay for a youth work trip to Colorado this summer. The youth serving the meal will go to Canon City, Colo., in late June to help with construction and home renovation projects.