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Spotlight on: Walnuts

The walnut (Juglans regia L.) is native to Western Asia but was also found in southern Europe early on. Since ancient times its leaves, fruit husk, nut, and the oil of its kernel have been used for medicinal and culinary purposes. Walnuts were primarily eaten for dessert by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who called them ‘Persian nuts’. It was not known in ancient Egypt and only arrived there during the Ptolemaic period (from Persia). The Arabic word for ‘walnut’, جوز (jawz) is a borrowing from the Persian گوز (gawz).

In the medieval Arab culinary tradition, the leaves, shells, nut (both cooked and dried) and oil from the pit were used. Walnuts combined with a souring agent (for instance, vinegar, pomegranate juice, sumac) are often found in recipes for condiments to accompany meat or fish dishes, whereas green walnuts were favoured for pickling. Walnut oil was often used uncooked and poured on sweets before serving, as in the case of an Abbasid qatayif (قطائف). Walnuts were also used to remove the bad odour of meat that has gone off by hanging two whole ones in the pot after piercing the shells. The bad smell would allegedly be fully absorbed by the nuts. Walnuts were the base of a very popular confection, known as jawzīnaq (جوزينق) or jawzīnaj (جوزينج), which was Persian in origin and is already mentioned in a sixth-century Sasanian text, alongside a variant made with almonds (لوز, lawz) and known as lawzīnaq/j (لوزينق, لوزينج).

Muslim physicians concurred with Dioscorides that walnuts were difficult to digest (the dried ones more than the fresh green ones), harmful to the stomach and to cause pustules in the mouth. As a result, they should be mixed with honey, combined with other substances such as rue or onions. Roasted walnut shells were also used to dye the hair black. It was thought that walnuts eaten with figs and oxymel (a mixture of vinegar and honey) served as an antidote to poisons.

The illustration below of walnuts in the herbal compiled by the Andalusian scholar al-Ghafiqi (12th century) also lists their alternative name qārūdhiyā bāsilīqā (قاروذيا باسليقا), a variation of the more usual qāruwā bāsilīqā (قاروا باسليقا), from the Greek κάρυα βασιλικά, meaning ‘royal nut’.

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Aleppine Qahiriyya 🍩 🤤

A 13th-century Syrian twist on the medieval classic doughnut, which came in North African and Egyptian variations as well. The fact that it is a recipe from Aleppo explains why it is made with pistachios — for which the city was famous — rather than the more usual almonds. Another interesting feature of this particular recipe is that it has the lowest number of ingredients among the Qahiriyya recipes.

The principle remains the same, of course. One starts with a filling (in this case, sugar, pistachios, rosewater and flour), which is then shaped into rings (as well as discs), which are left to dry overnight. Then, they are dunked into a batter and deep-fried before being smothered with a mixture of rose-water syrup and honey.

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Medieval Bissara

The word baysar (بيسار) referred to dried broad beans (فول, ful) in medieval Andalus and North Africa, but also to a dish made with them. This recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook requires cooking the beans in water with some onion, garlic, cumin, coriander and fennel until It becomes a smooth mass, at which point salt is added. It was eaten with cumin and olive oil, and the author recommended rue, onions or olives as an accompaniment.

The dish has survived to the present day in the form of the bissara (بصارة) of Morocco, Algeria and Egypt, where it probably originated since the word, itself, goes back to the Coptic pesouro. It tends to be eaten for breakfast (especially in winter) or as a filling snack or dip with bread, and is still served with a sprinkling of cumin.

One can also draw parallels with other dishes such as the Egyptian national dish ful medammis (فول مدمّس) or the Cretan koukofava.

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Abbasid beef barida

This recipe, which dates from the earliest Arab culinary tradition, is for a so-called ‘cold’ dish (باردة, bārida), which referred to vegetable dishes, though some are with fish or, as in this case, meat, which were starters.

This dish is also unusual in that it is one of a relatively small number calling for beef. It is first boiled in water and when, murrī and a thick sauce made with pounded walnuts, vinegar, rue and salt are poured over it. It is served with a sprinkling of zayt al-unfāq (زيت الأنفاق) — a term derived from the Greek omphákion (ὀμφάκινον) –, which referred to oil pressed from fresh unripe olives. The garnish includes quartered hard-boiled eggs, rue and greens herbs.

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Chicken for Melancholics

Another recipe by the Andalusian physician al-Zahrawi (d. 1013), whose name refers to his place of birth, the beautiful madinat al-Zahra’ (مدينة الزهراء), near Córdoba. This recipe is his version of a famous medieval dish, known as isfidhbāj (a word from Persian meaning ‘white stew’) because it was originally made with cheese. It was one of the dishes introduced to al-Andalus by Ziryab, and became known as tafāyā (تفايا). However, this particular variant is not so much a stew as chicken with a sauce.

The chicken is fried with olive oil — the recipe calls for so-called zayt al-unfāq (زيت الأنفاق), which is made from unripe olives –, good-quality salt, onion juice and coriander before being cooked with grape vinegar, pomegranate juice, boiled-down wine, and aromatics like cassia, cloves, spikenard, and pepper. The author included it among the dishes that are particularly useful for melancholics, but it has the added benefit of countering palpitations and tremors. Furthermore, he added that it was ‘tried and tested’. Surely, the right kind of dish for cold winter months when we can all need a boost.

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Medieval Syrian crumbly seeded biscuits

This is a recipe from 13th-century Aleppo for a very simple type of biscuit, which was a variant for a sweet known as ‘urnīn‘, which was quite popular since another recipe can be found in a Baghdadi cookery book.

In Arabic it is called khubz al-abāzīr (خبز الأبازير), which translates as spiced, or seeded bread; its preparation could not be more simple and involves kneading wheat flour with sesame oil, sesame seeds, pistachios and almonds and then shaping it into round cakes before baking until browned. The full urnīn recipe, in case you’re wondering, includes a filling of sugar pistachios and almonds, added with aromatics like rose water and musk. But that, as they say, is for another day! For now, it is time to enjoy the more basic variety!

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Medieval Andalusian Goat Stew

This is a recreation of a wonderful recipe created by one of the most important physicians of the Middle Ages, the Cordoba-born Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī, who was court physician to the Andalusian caliph ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir, and has been considered the father of modern surgery. It’s made with kid (or a pullet, if you can’t get goat),

Take one pound of tender meat, or meat from a young goat or chicken, whichever is available. After cutting it up, it is cooked with some onion, salt, and almond oil (which is tob preferred over olive oil). After crushing raisins into a paste with some vinegar, the strained off liquid is added to the meat, along with galangal, cassia, saffron, and thirty (yes exactly!) peeled pistachios. Once everything is cooked, it’s ready to serve. It is apparently a dish that strengthens the liver and stomach. Just what the doctor ordered!

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Gazelle’s ankles

This recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook is the ancestor of the modern North African almond-stuffed crescent-shaped biscuits, often called by their French name of cornes de gazelle, which are known in Arabic either as qarn al-ghazāl (قرن الغزال) or ka’b al-ghazāl (كعب الغزال, ‘gazelle ankles’), as they were in the Middle Ages. In Algeria, they are commonly called tcharek (تشاراك ) msakker (مسكّر, ‘sugared’).

Unlike the present-day sweets, the 13th-century variety was shaped into rolls. The dough is made with flour, olive oil, hot water and salt, added with fennel seeds, aniseed, pepper and ginger. For the stuffing, sugar and almonds are mixed together with rose water and aromatic spices. The dough is then shaped into very thin rolls in which the stuffing is placed before baking them in the oven. The author adds that some ‘refined people’ (ظرفاء, ẓurafā’) add crushed pine nuts to the filling, as well as whole pine nut into each roll. After baking, they should be kept in a jar, but, based on how good they are, I don’t think anyone needs a particularly big one!

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Aleppine Sour Orange Stew

Sour orange stews — known as nāranjiyya (نارنجية) after the word for ‘sour orange’, nāranj (today, they’re often also referred to as bu-safīr (بوصفير) or burtuqāl murr (برتقال مرّ, ‘bitter orange’) –were very popular in the medieval Arab culinary tradition and recipes can be found in multiple cookery books. This particular variety is from 13th-century Aleppo, and requires cooking a jointed chicken in sesame oil, chicken fat with onions, almonds and sour orange juice. The taste is enhanced by fresh mint, cinnamon, and mastic. It’s quite tangy so you might wish to sweeten it with sugar, but the author advises doing without since that is the way the dish should be done. Additionally, chefs are advised that the person peeling the sour oranges should not be the one extracting the juice!

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Andalusian crunchy broad beans

This scrumptious recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook is easy to make, but does require a bit of preparation since you first need to germinate broad beans (فول, fūl). Once that is done, however, you’re good to go; after a quick rinse, the beans are fried in olive oil until golden brown. Before serving, add a dusting of salt, pepper and cinnamon — or, as the author says ‘anything else you like to enhance the flavour’ — and enjoy! It’s an amazing snack, and much healthier than crisps!

And what’s more, there are quite a few benefits to eating broad beans, which, according to medieval physicians, were among the foods that preserve health. In addition, they were said to soften the throat, and even clear freckles. Unpeeled broad beans boiled in vinegar were recommended against diarrhoea and vomiting. On the downside, their flatulent effect was said to be unmatched, and may cause heaviness in the head and confused dreams! Life is all about choices…