Bringing Medieval Arab Cooking to Life
The zīrbāja (or zīrbāj) was one of the most popular stews in the Abbasid cuisine, and was usually made with chicken, almonds, and saffron. Its renown was such that it is the plot in one of the stories of the Arabian Nights. This particular dish (from a tenth-century cookery book) is rather unusual in that it is coloured green by means of a sauce made of crushed parsley, rue, and pistachios. Other ingredients include spices like coriander, pepper and cassia.
The usual Arabic word for fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), rāziyānaj, is a borrowing from Persian (where it is also appears as rāzyām and rāziyāna). Its other names include shamar (another Persian borrowing) and, in the Maghrib, nāfiʿ (نافع) and basbās (بسباس). it is native to the Near East, but was already used in cooking in classical Antiquity. In mediaeval Arab cuisine it was particularly popular in Andalusian and North African cuisines, which used its seeds, stalks or leaves in a number of recipes, ranging from stews and condiments to drinks, or pickled. Medically, wild fennel was recommended in the treatment of blockages, to strengthen the eye- sight, and against nausea and heartburn. It was also considered a diuretic and emmenagogue. At the same time, it is slow to digest (its root causes constipation) and not very nutritious. Today, it is still used in pharmacology for its antioxidant, antitumor, hypoglycemic, and oestrogenic properties.
ِA delicious Abbasid bread recipe from the 10th century. It takes its name from the fact that after making the dough and letting it rise, it is rubbed with olive oil. Preheat the oven (or a tannur if you happen to have one out in the back!), and bake. Don’t forget to drizzle on water and milk before putting the loaves in the oven.
At today’s webinar on Digital Humanities in the MENA region organized by Hamad bin Khalifa University, I presented an exciting joint project with Prof. George Mikros related to the analysis of recipes in mediaeval Arab cookery books using advanced Natural Language Processing methods. This is the first time state-of-the art Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods are applied to a corpus of mediaeval Arab recipes. The aim is to identify (1) patterns of ingredients and flavours; (2) diachronic changes in the selection and frequency of ingredients; and (3) relationships among the treatises. This analysis will not only help us detect the core themes of Arabic cuisine in medieval times, but will also show how these topics evolved over time as the structure of the constituent ingredients changed. Finally, this information will reveal crucial evidence about the authorship of recipes since quantitative profiling can reveal significant aspects of style. These findings are especially useful in the identification of anonymous texts.
This most precious of spices is known in Arabic as za’farān (زعفران), which is the origin of our English word.
In cooking it was used as an aromatic and, more frequently, to colour dishes, in which case it tended to be added at the end of the cooking process. It is also found in incense recipes and perfumes. The 13th-century anonyous Andalusian treatise recommends using saffron in pickled dishes and those with poultry that include vinegar and murrī.
It was also commonly referred to as kurkum, which actually denotes turmeric (Curcuma longa, a plant from the ginger family). The confusion between the two may also explain why kurkum does not appear in the cookery books. Then as now, there were complaints about unscrupulous market vendors adulterating saffron with turmeric, which, itself, was also often corrupted by mixing in ground pomegranate skins! According to some scholars, kurkum was the root of saffron. Medicinally, it was thought to strengthen the stomach, heart, liver, and complexion. However, physicians warned that it could also cause headaches, and the fact that it is poisonous — even lethal — at large doses. According to the pharmacologist al-Samarqandī (d. 1222), saffron enhances digestion, but cuts appetite and is harmful to the brain. It was also said to be an anaesthetic and diuretic. Because of its aphrodisiacal properties, the Prophet is said to have forbidden the wearing of clothes dyed with saffron for pilgrims who were in a state of ritual purity, and thus debarred from sexual activity.
Today is the official release of The Sultan’s Feast, a study, edition and annotated English translation of a fifteenth-century Egyptian cookbook (London: Saqi Books). Based on the sole surviving manuscript, it contains 332 recipes, ranging from bread-making and savoury stews, to roasts, sweets, pickles and condiments, as well as perfumes.
This is one dish that is guaranteed to wow your guests as much as it did the tenth-century Baghdadi chef! As with many things, its genius lies in its simplicity. The principle is to cook fish in three different ways simultaneously; the head is roasted (mashwī), the centre poached (maṭbūkh), and the tail fried (maqluww). But that is not all! The fish is also stuffed with a rich filling fish, salt, eggs, honey, a variety of herbs and spices (among them spikenard, cloves, ginger, cumin, rue, coriander) and olive oil. To complete the package, citron leaves, apple peel, salt, thyme and rue are put inside the mouth of the fish. And for the main event thick cloth soaked in water is wrapped around the centre of the fish, with the lower part bandaged with linen also soaked in oil. Cook in a pre-heated oven until it is done. Remove the wrapping before serving (with three sauces, one for each part of the fish!). This is a dish that travelled beyond the Arab world very early on as a very similar recipe is found in the Vivendier, a 15th-century French cookery manual .
Known in Arabic as sadhab (سذاب), rue (Ruta graveolens), a small evergreen with a bitter taste, comes in both a wild and cultivated variety. It was already one of the most-used herbs in Roman cooking (it is required in over a quarter of the first-century compilation attributed to Apicius), even though it was considered an anaphrodisiac, and harmful to pregnant women.
In mediaeval Arab cuisine, it was used both fresh and dried in a wide variety of dishes (fish, meat, condiments), and was often added to assist digestion and reduce bloating. One 10th-century author recommended adding rue to a burnt dish since it removes the burnt taste. It also served to mask the smell of garlic and onion. Medicinally, it was prescribed in remedies against alopecia, paralysis, sciatica, and to strengthen the eyesight. When used in a preparation with pomegranate peel, it treats ear- ache and tinnitus. It was also considered an antidote for all poisons. On the downside, it dries out semen, reduces sexual desire, causes constipation, and harms the eyesight! Interestingly enough, in mediaeval Europe, rue became known as a deterrent against witches. In any case, you won’t rue the day that you started using this wonderful herb.
This medieaval classic has survived to the present day, albeit in a slightly different form. It was named after a seventh-century governor of Khorasan (a region stretching from present-day Iran across Central Asia) and involved a type of rice (or milk) pudding. The typical ingredients were rice, milk, sugar, and chicken. Interestingly enough, the dish was also known by an Indian name, bahatta. The Arabs passed the recipe to Christian Europe, where it became known as blanc-manger and was a staple of the mediaeval diet. The modern reincarnations of blancmange and muhallabiyya are no longer made with meat, but a taste of the original dish can be found in the Turkish tavuk göğsü (which translates as ‘chicken breast’). The recipe recreated here is a variant from the fifteenth century and requires meat and saffron-dyed rice, with honey or date syrup (dibs), rather than sugar, providing the sweetness.
A thirteenth-century Egyptian recipe which requires semolina flour, carlified butter, honey, rose water, and rose-water syrup. For the decoration, use crushed pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds and sugar.
