Category: Spotlight

Besides an open fire, food was heated in a number of devices in medieval times, and the cookery books mention several of them. A first group includes the mustawqad (مستوقد), which is only mentioned in the oldest Abbasid manual (10th century), where it is described as a stove built in the form of a trapezium (munharif), half a man’s height tall, with openings to let the smoke out. The kānūn (كانون) was a (portable) brazier, which appears a few times in manuals from both Egypt and Iraq, for the smoking of olives, for toasting bread topped with condiments and eggs (a kind of pizza avant la lettre, if you will), and, in one case, to heat up a harisa (meat porridge). It is possible that there were two types of kānūn, since the instructions for the smoked olives refer to their being placed inside and the door being closed. In Muslim Spain, khubz kanuni (‘kanun bread’) referred to bread baked in embers. In modern Egypt, the kānūn refers to a clay or mud-brick hearth for cooking.

In terms of ovens, there were essentially two kinds: the (mud-)brick furn (فرن) and the clay tannūr (تنّور), what is today called a tandoor. The latter goes back to the Babylonian tinuru, and is shaped like a cylinder or bee-hive, with a vent at the bottom (where the fire is kindled) and a hole on top. Already in Babylonian times, it was used to bake bread — most commonly unleavened –with the dough being stuck along the sides. However, in medieval Arab cuisine, it was also used to cook dishes, which would be put inside for slow-cooking after bread baking, placed on top, or even hung inside. Some of the commercial and palace tannūrs were so big that they could accommodate a whole lamb.

The tannūr can be found across the eastern mediterranean very early on as there is evidence of similar cylindrical ovens made out of mud and clay being used in ancient Egypt, as the illustration below shows, with loaves also being stuck along the sides for baking. In fact, the tannūr may just as easily have originated in Egypt, and then spread to Mespotamia.

The conventional oven, furn, is open at the front, with a fire being lit either inside, or underneath a shelf. It was used for baking bread, as well as for the roasting of dishes. The medieval furn would have looked very similar to the one depicted in the late 18th century in the Description d’Egypte.

But was every kitchen equipped with these devices? Well, for a start, only a small percentage of houses had a separate kitchen space, which was the preserve of the elite, some of whose houses even had two kitchens; one with an oven and a kānūn, and another one — without equipment — possibly for prepping the food. However, the Egyptian historian al-Jabarti, writing about the second half of the 18th century, explained that every notable’s house had two kitchens, “one on the lower level for men, and the other in the women’s quarters (harem).”

The average person’s house in urban areas would have had neither the space nor the required ventilation. Indeed, unlike in colder climates, fires were not lit inside since, for the most part, heating was not required, in light of the climate. Another factor was the relatively high price of fuel (wood, in particular), which was outside the reach of the majority of the population. They would, in fact, get all of their hot meals outside, which explains the huge number of public food vendors and stalls. Sometimes, people would prepare some food and have it heated up elsewhere; this was the case for bread, for instance, where the dough would be prepared at home and then sent to a communal oven, as is still the case in some areas today. However, as the cookery books reveal, this practice would also exist for other dishes. A contemporary example can be found in Marrakech, where many families still prepare the famous tanjia in traditional clay jars before sending it to be slow-cooked in the ashes of the communal oven that heats the hammam.

People living in the countryside were not faced with the city-dwellers’ problem of space, and would have had self-made ovens, made of mud, which would not have been very different from those found to this day in some rural areas. There is also evidence that they would have had makeshift outside tannūrs, the average one being approximately one metre in height, and packed with pottery on the outside to preserve the heat.

The English traveller Edward Lane, writing in the early 19th century, described the situation in Egypt at the time: “in the houses of the peasants in Lower Egypt, there is generally an oven (“furn“), at the end furthest from the entrance, and occupying the whole width of the chamber. It resembles a wide bench or seat, and is about breast-high: it is constructed of brick and mud; the roof arched within, – and flat on the top. The inhabitants of the house, who seldom have any night-covering during the winter, sleep upon the top of the oven, having previously lighted a fire within it; or the husband and wife only enjoy this luxury, and the children sleep upon the floor.” For fuel, they used dung of cattle, kneaded with chopped straw, and formed into round flat cakes, known as gilla (جلّة), which can still be found in rural Egypt.

The Arabic words for ‘camel’, jamal and its more classical sister ibil, refer to both the one-humped dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) and the two-humped Camel bactrianus, the so-called Asian camel, which is more common in Persia and Central Asia. The latter species is also called fālij in Arabic. A female camel is known as nāqa, which probably goes back to the Akkadian word with the same meaning, anaqāte.

The animal is already mentioned as food in Classical Antiquity and Greek authors spoke of camels being roasted whole at banquets at Persian courts, whereas Aristotle spoke highly of both camel meat and milk. The Roman emperor Heliogabalus (218-222) was allegedly a great afficianado of camel’s heel, a taste he probably acquired during his childhood in what is today Homs (Syria). Physicians were less favourable, however, and the great Galen stated that only people who were mentally and physically like a camel could eat it.

The Bedouin livelihoods in pre-Islamic Arabia relied on their animal herds, especially the camel, which was their most prized possession due to its multiple uses, as a mount, beast of burden, and a source of drink (its milk), fuel (its dung), and hides. As a result, camels would not usually be slaughtered for meat, unless they were ill or died from natural causes. So, when the pre-Islamic bedouin poet Hatim al-Ta’i (حاتم الطائي) slaughtered several hundred camels to honour visitors, this was considered an extreme act of Bedouin generosity and hospitality. In fact, this and other similar stories — usually involving the slaughtering of animals (especially camels) — made him a legend in Arabic (and Persian) culture, and his name lives on to this day in the saying ‘more generous than Hatim al-Ta’i’ (أكرم من حاتم الطائي).

The camel’s character was not as praiseworthy as its practical benefits and there is frequent mention of its spitefulness and extreme rancorousness, combined with a long memory of those who wronged them!

In Arabic culinary literature, the use of camel meat is only mentioned in what is considered the oldest (10th-century) Abbasid cookery book, which contains a number of camel recipes, known as jazūriyya, from the word jazūr, meaning a slaughtered camel (especially the female). The meat (including the hump) is generally sliced up and cooked (stew or roasted), whereas camel liver also appears as an ingredient. There is also a recipe for a sour drink made from camel’s milk mixed with black pepper and galangal. The author recommended camel milk for liver aches and putrified humours, and its meat for individuals with weak stomachs.

Physicians like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) advised camel’s milk in the treatment of asthma; camel dung for removing scars and warts, pimples, and ulcers, and for swollen joint pains; camel urine for dandruff; camel’s brain with vinegar against epilepsy; camel’s fat for convulsions; and fumigation of a camel’s hump to relieve haemorrhoids. Ibn Bakthishu’ (11th c.) suggested drinking camel’s brain cooked in rainwater in order to combat pains resulting from coldness. Ibn Jazla (12th century), for his part, recommended camel blood against epilepsy, and also includes what is probably the most unusual medicine involving camel; a drink made with dried and crushed camel’s testicles against adder bites — cheers!

The physician, philosopher and theologian Ibn Butlan (d. 1066) was one of the leading scholars of his day. Born in Baghdad, he travelled widely across the Muslim world (Aleppo, Cairo, Constantinople) dispensing his immense medical knowledge. He ended up in Antioch (present-day Antakya, in Turkey), where he became a monk (he was a Nestorian Christan), and spent his final days at a monastery. He is best known for his Taqwīm al-ṣiḥḥa (تقويم الصحّة, ‘The Maintenance of Health’), a hygiene and dietetic synopsis in the form of tables, which gained considerable fame and influence in Christian Europe, with Latin (Tacuinum sanitatis) and German translations being printed in 1531 and 1533, respectively. The book contains therapeutic uses of various materia medica and foods, including dishes. His other works include a medical and dietetic manual for ‘monks living in a monastery or far from towns’, extracts from which found their way into several culinary treatises, and Daʿwat al-atibbāʾ (دعوة الأطبّاء, ‘The Physicians’ Dinner Party’), a humorous critique of quacks.

The Taqwīm al-ṣiḥḥa also contains plenty of cooking and dining advice, some of which was copied in some cookery books. Here are some recommendations for chefs:

Temper saltiness and acridity by boiling in freshwater.

Temper pungency and bitterness with vinegar, sourness with salt, and blandness with spices .

Boil that which is emaciated before cooking it, and coat it with fat before grilling it, and place a pot with freshwater underneath it.

Remove grilled food from the fire while it still retains some moisture.

Do not cover game meat when cooking it.

Do not slaughter an animal on the day it has eaten garlic or onions.

Make sure to remove the scum from meat when cooking it.

Sharpen cleavers to cut the bones to prevent them from shattering, and knives to cut meat so that it does not smell bad.

Scrape the table clean and for peeling onions use a knife that is not used in the cutting of the tharīd.

Use a dedicated ladle and lid for each pot.

Continuously skim off the froth and clean the sides of the pot from anything that can get burnt.

Remedy food that has been burnt by sticking wet paper along the sides of the pot.  

If you need to add water [to the pot], sprinkle it in and rub it along the sides of the pot so as to avoid bad smells.

Do not pound spices or almonds in a malodorous mortar, or put the juices in a rusty receptacle.

Do not ladle things out of the pot before it has stopped boiling and the heat has subsided.

Wash your hands before removing food from the pot.

Do not use vinegar or oil that have been in a copper vessel.

Remove the smell of onions on your hands by fumigating the hands with sandalwood.

Make sure to fry spices and onions, as this is what cooking is all about.

Leave meat high in density overnight to tenderize it, and boil it in water and salt.

Avoid fires with fresh and moist wood because the best fire is that which is free from defects.

If you want to quickly cook meat, throw some borax on it, and add wax, fig twigs, and melon peel to the pot.

When it comes to diners, Ibn Butlan, like many other physicians, prescribed a number of things:

Sweets should be eaten at the end of the meal because they remove the greasy residue of food from the mouth, and because they are very balanced.

Avoid eating vinegar after rice, butter milk with radish, or onions with garlic.

Do not have salty foods or cold water after eating fruits.

One should eat light food, such as vegetables and fruits, before heavy food.

Do not eat and drink at the same time.

Have a light meal in the evening and you will be more active the next day.

Have the table cleared while you still feel like eating, to avoid overindulgnce.

In the Middle Ages, markets were subject to a number of quality-control regulations, which were enforced by the market inspector, known as the muhtasib (محتسب). It is said that the Prophet Muhammad, himself, appointed the first officals with jurisdiction over the markets in Mecca and Medina. However, the office of the muhtasib appears not to have been formalized until the 9th century, during the Abbasid caliphate.

The importance attached to ensuring that market traders plied their wares in an ethical manner was such that a considerable number of manuals were produced across the Muslim world — from Muslim Spain to Syria and Iraq — outlining the muhtasib’s supervisory duties and responsibilities. These were, in fact, linked to the meaning of the word hisba (from which muhtasib is derived) as an injunction to promote good and forbid evil, which is incumbent upon every Muslim. In other words, to cheat customers is an unreligious — as well as an unethical and possibly criminal — thing to do. In many respects, the way the muhtasibs operated was very similar to today’s trading standards officers, and they provided a crucial public service.

Markets in the Muslim world contained a large number of food providers as most people ate out for most of their meals since the average home did not have the facilities for cooking, baking, etc. The public had a choice from amongst a dizzying array of specialised providers to satisfy the most varied and demanding of palates, with stalls specialising in fried fish, confectionery, freshly-made zulābiyya, cooked liver, harīsa (a meat porridge), cold snacks (bawārid), grilled and roast meats, sausages, cooked lentils and broad beans, sheep’s heads, etc. And it is in this area, of course, that the muhtasib‘s duties were, literally, of vital importance from a public health perspective. This also explains why they had to verify that traders had the required skills, as in the case of the syrup makers (sharrābiyūn), who also sold electuaries and other medicinal compounds, which could only be prepared from recognized pharmacological manuals.

The large range of potential issues that are mentioned in the hisba manuals clearly reveal that the market inspectors had their work cut out for them, as shown by the following examples from one of the hisba manuals from 12th-century Syria.

Naturally, the more precious the item, the more likely it will be tampered with. So, it is not surprising that saffron is often mentioned in this regard. Then, as now, it was blended with safflower, though other, far more unusual, tactics were also used. One of them involved using chicken breasts and beef boiled in water and then shredded before being dyed with saffron and mixed into the baskets. Other additives included starch or even ground glass! Similarly, camphor was apparently sometimes mixed with waste marble trimmings, or kneaded with resin. Honey, on the other hand, was frequently thinned with water, though this resulted in its resembling semolina in winter, and being watery in summer. As for turmeric, this was bulked up with ground pomegranate skins.

Bread was commonly adulterated by mixing beans, or chickpea and rice flour in with the wheat flour. Stews could be thickened with rice flour, semolina, taro, or starch. The sellers of the already-mentioned harīsa, which was a very popular market food, would not only thicken it with taro, but would instead of good-quality (lamb) meat use sheep’s head meat, or dried beef and camel meat. And like the contemporary visitor to an all-you-can-eat buffet, the medieval diner would be very much aware of the possibility that the harīsa might contain the left-over meat from the previous day — or the one before that!

The manuals give clear instructions on how to identify fraudulent acts, such as changes in colour, consistency, and taste of foodstuffs and ingredients, with the muhtasib being assisted by helpers, who would report on any suspicious behaviour. For instance, in order to detect fraudulent musk — another very expensive commodity — the inspector should put his lips to it; if it is pure musk, he should get a sharp sensation, like fire, in his mouth. If he does not, then the musk has been tampered with. The inspector would also take pre-emptive measures, such as putting a seal on food items, to prevent any subsequent tampering.

Another key area revolved around measures and weights, and muhtasibs went around verifying that traders used the right weights and did not short-change the unsuspecting punter.

When rules were broken, there would naturally follow a punishment, which the inspectors were empowered to carry out. However, the manuals encouraged them to rely on deterrence and reprimand, and to be lenient for first offenders, while the penalty should be commensurate with the crime. The manual lists the muhtasib‘s main tools of the trade, so to speak, as being the whip and the turtur (طرطور), a tall conical cap, which were displayed at his booth in the market, by way of deterrent. In serious cases, or repeat offending, the penalties would be flogging and/or public pillory, with the culprit being forced to wear the turtur as a kind of dunce cap, and paraded about town.

But it was not just unscrupulous business practices that fell within the muhtasib‘s remit, which was, after all, to uphold moral conduct, and so he would also intervene in other matters that infringed upon public decency, such as the drinking of alcohol, or unmarried/ unrelated men and women consorting.

In the medieval Islamic world, travel was very important, whether it be for trade, education, or religion (the hajj), and conditions were often hard. As a result, it is hardly surprising that leading physicians paid a great deal of attention to the health and regimen of travellers (تدبير المسافرين, tadbīr al-musāfirīn). Ibn Sina (Avicenna), for instance, said that travellers should divide their rations into portions that are not too big and in keeping with their temperament so as to allow full digestion, whereas herbs, vegetables and fruits should be avoided (unless they are required for medical reasons) as they may produce bad ‘humours’.

Travel often meant going without food or drink for long periods of time and so one should avoid snacks that cause thirst, such as fish, capers, salted foods, and sweets. If there is a shortage of water, vinegar should be added to it, as this quenches thirst. In order better to withstand food deprivation, Ibn Sina recommended food prepared from roast livers and the like, strong liquid fats, almonds, and almond oil, whereas beef fat will help suppress hunger pangs for a long time. He recounts that one man partook of a pound of violet oil in which fat had been dissolved and felt sated for ten days. al-Razi (Rhazes), for his part, suggested chewing pickled onions as a travelling snack, since this assuages hunger. Travellers should also refrain from riding immediately after a full meal, because the decomposition of the food causes thirst.

Scholars made a distinction between travelling to hot or cold regions. When journeying in the former, Ibn Sina suggested travellers eat barley sawīq (see below) and fruit syrups before setting out since riding on an empty stomach greatly reduces one’s strength.
If one is afraid of being caught in a samūm (hot desert whirlwinds), one should eat onions with (or before) thick sour butter milk (دوغ, dūgh) or, especially, onions steeped in it overnight — the onions should be scored before putting them in the milk. Another remedy to deal with the anxiety is to suck on aromatic oils, such as rose oil or gourd-seed oil, as these have a calming effect.

Travellers in cold climes should take provisions that allow them to endure the cold more easily, and according to Ibn Sina, this includes foods with plenty of garlic, walnuts, mustard, asafoetida, which all have hot ‘temperaments’. Yoghurt whey (مصل , masl) can be added to make the garlic and walnuts taste better. Clarified butter (سمن, samn), or ghee, is also good, especially if one drinks wine after eating it. In cold regions, one should drink wine rather than water. Asafoetida, in particular, has a warming effect, especially when taken with wine.

The cookery books also sometimes mention the usefulness of certain foods for travellers, as in the case of khushkānaj (خشكانج), a type of pastry, or hays (حيس) — date balls mixed with nuts –, which are mentioned by both al-Baghdadi (13th century) and al-Warrāq (10th c.), with the latter specifying that this confection tended to be carried by the elite on the hajj.

Al-Warrāq also devoted an entire chapter on the already-mentioned sawīq (سويق) for travellers. This drink was made with toasted wheat grains (or almonds), to which pomegranates, or clarified butter could be added, and which was stored until needed, when water would be added, as well as sugar, to taste. This was already a favourite among Bedouins in pre-Islamic Arabia.

The same author mentions a type of dip, sibāgh (صباغ), which could be made from a number of ingredients, such as yoghurt, raisins, walnuts, and even fish, but often included mustard. One variety in particular was said to be good for the road since it involves kneading a mixture of pomegranate seeds, raisins, pepper and cumin into discs, which can be stored and, when needed, are dissolved in vinegar. This would be eaten with bread.

When the high and mighty travelled, they would, of course, do so with their chefs and portable kitchens, which included braziers, cauldrons, and all the kitchen- and tableware in keeping with their station. In some cases, the challenges of al fresco cooking resulted in a new dishes, as in a famous story of the development of a dish called kushtabiyya (كشتابية) about a Persian king whose Arab chef would prepare meat slices cooked on embers or boiled, eaten with a dip. One day, the cook was caught unawares by the unexpected return to camp of the king, and had not had time to start cooking the meat. In order to speed things up, he put the meat in a pan with some oil and lit the fire. He put the meat in a frying pan, poured in some fat, and fried it. He sprinkled the meat with salted water, and added some chopped onion and spices before covering the pot and letting it stew.

Travel was responsible for the creation of other dishes as well, such as kebabs which would have been skewered on a sword and roasted over a fire.