This thirteenth-century recipe from The Exile”s Cookbook is a variation on a spinach stew made with ram, though lamb works very nicely as well in case you can’t get your hands on some ram meat. The meat is cooked first and then the orache, known in Arabic as qaṭaf (قطف) or baqla dhahabiyya (‘golden herb’). It’s not readily available in shops, but very easy to grow and so for the re-creation, the one grown in the garden was used. It is no coincidence that this vegetable is given as an option since it has a very similar taste to spinach. Other ingredients include suet, coriander — both fresh and juiced — and mint. Apparently, this was a dish that was served at banquets, in which case it would have been garnished with fresh cheese before serving. And why not, indeed?
This is a recipe from a 13th-century Aleppine collection, and is a variation on a drink made with citron (أترجّ, utrujj). The Arabic word for the fruit used is kubbād (كبّاد), which in the western Mediterranean was known as zanbū‘ (زنبوع). The re-creation was made with the pulp, sugar, sour orange (نارنج, nāranj) juice, borage water, rose water, willow water, rue and the atraf al-tib spice blend. To really make it come into its own, add crushed ice and turn it into a refreshing mocktail — ideal for hot summer days!
The product of the honey-bee (Apismellifera), honey has played a very important part in both Arab cooking and Muslim culture and was the main sweetener in the medieval culinary tradition until the advent of sugar cane. At the tables of the elites it came under threat from sugar since the latter was more expensive and thus more prestigious. Honey was gathered from the wild, as well as through bee-keeping, which was already practised in Ancient Egypt, by the third millennium BCE.
In ancient Mesopotamia, honey (known as dishpu in Akkadian) was used in a variety of ways, as a sweetener (for instance in bread), in perfumes, and for medicinal purposes; for instance honey mixed with oil and beer as an emetic, or mixed with other medicines and ghee for use as ear and eye drops. It was also used in the anoinment of priests and consecration of buildings
Muslim physicians, like Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), believed honey starts as a vapour that becomes a viscid dew in flowers, plants and trees, and is gathered by bees, who feed on it and store it. The best kind of honey was thought to be naturally sweet, fragrant, slightly pungent, and red in colour. The honey gathered in spring is better than that in summer and, especially, winter, which is of poor quality. Honey was endowed with a number of medicinal — especially antiseptic — properties. Applied externally, it stops putrefaction of the flesh, cleanses ulcers, heals wounds, and improves hearing. When mixed with musk it forms an effective eye-lotion for curing cataract and other eye infections. As a food, it was considered very nutritious, while strengthening the stomach, increasing appetite, and curing dim vision.
The most-prized honeys were those from the honey mimosa (Acacia mellifera) and wild lavender (Lavandula vera) flowers, while Armenia, Morocco, Persia and Egypt were popular honey-producing regions. The pure white honey from Isfahan was a particular favourite at the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and during Harun al-Rashid’s reign, the city would sent 20,000 pounds of honey and 20,000 pounds of wax as part of the tax levy to the ruler.
Honey also enjoyed a religious endorsement in that its benefits – and those of bees, of course – are already mentioned in the Qur’ān (one of its suras is called al-Nahl/النحل, ‘The Bees’) and also figure prominently in hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad). Indeed, it is said that ‘The believer is like a bee which eats that is pure and wholesome and lays that which is pure and wholesome. When it lands on something, it doesn’t break or ruin it.’ (إِنَّ مَثَلَ المؤمِنِ كَمَثَلِ النَّحْلَةِ أَكَلَتْ طَيِّبَاً و وَضَعَتْ طَيِّبَاً و وَقَعَتْ فَلَمْ تَكْسِرْ و لَمْ تُفْسِدْ).
The first illustration below is part of an Arabic translation (dated 1224) of Dioscorides’ (d. ca 90 CE) pharmacological work, De materia medica. It shows a physician stirring a pot containing a mixture of honey and water, called melikraton (μελίκρατον) in Greek and maliqratun (مالقراطن) in Arabic, and serving some of it to a patient in a gold goblet. The scene is probably set in a hospital, with the section at the top showing pharmacists preparing medicines. The text is part of a passage about the mixture (the Arabic word used is sharāb, i.e. ‘syrup’) when it is old, in which case it is beneficial for those who have lost their appetite or are weakened. The Arabic text is somewhat corrupted since it refers to mixing one part of honey with honey, rather than with stale rain water, as it does in the original Greek. The mixture is boiled down to a third, and then stored. Next, we learn that some people use the term abūmālī (the Greek apomeli) for the mixture made by washing honeycomb with water. However, it must be unadulterated and, while some people boil this down, too, it is unsuitable for the sick because it contains too much beebread.
The second illustration is from the section on bees (and hornets) in a 13th-century manuscript of a book on the characteristics of animals (Kitāb na’t al-hayawān), composed by a member of the Ibn Bukhtīshū’ family, a Nestorian Christian medical dynasty, whose members served as private physicians to many Abbasid caliphs between the 8th and 11th centuries.
Physician mixing honey (Metropolitan Museum of Art)illustration of bees by Ibn Bukhtishu’
A wonderful recipe for a sweet from The Exile’s Cookbook. It is made with honey (for the re-creation, a very delicate organic sidr one was used), which is heated up and then strained before being cooked again with starch, almonds and saffron. The tricky thing is to prevent it from crystallizing. Once it’s sufficiently thickened, a little olive is soaked in, and then it’s ready to serve. Don’t forget to sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon, for that extra deliciousness! The result is something like a halva and can be eaten hot or cold. The author suggests serving it at the end of the meal, but really it’s just too good not to eat it any other time, whenever you need to satisfy your sweet tooth.
A recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook for a variation of the famous Berber (Amazigh) dish couscous, this one involving hand-rolled large grains known as muhammas (محمّص). The word is derived from ḥimmiṣ (حمّص), ‘chickpea’, in reference to the shape and size. It is still used in this sense in North African Arabic dialects, alongside others like barkūk, barkukes, abāzīn or mardūd. The importance that is attached to this kind of couscous is such that in some regions it is known, simply, as ‘aysh (‘life’).
It is different from the usual couscous in that semolina is kneaded and shaped into pellets the size of peppercorns which are then dried in the sun before cooking them with the meat of your choice. For the re-creation, chicken was used, but it works just as well with beef or mutton. A wonderful dish.
Pears (Pirus communis)– like their cousin the apple – originated in the Caucasus and northeastern Anatolia. The fruit was already cultivated in Ancient Greece in the first millennium BCE, but it only spread throughout the Mediterranean in the Roman period. The Greek botanist Theophrastus (d. 287 BCE) discussed various techniques for growing them, whereas the naturalist Pliny the Elder (d. 79 CE) referred to forty-one varieties being available in Rome. Dioscorides recommended pears as an antidiarrheal medicine, but said that they are harmful when eaten on an empty stomach. More mysteriously, he claimed the ash of pear tree wood was an effective remedy for those choking from mushrooms, while cooking pears with mushrooms removed the latter’s harmful properties. Pears were much more popular than apples at the time but because pears can spoil very easily, they were often preserved after drying them, or in grape syrup, and the Romans even made a pear vinegar.
In the Arabic-speaking world, pears (كمّثرى, kummathra) were grown in a number of areas, especially the Levant, but also in Egypt. Sources also refer to Chinese, Sijistani and Khorasani pears as being particularly good varieties. Pears appear only once in the medieval Arabic culinary literature, as an optional ingredient in a 13th-century Andalusian fruit pudding.
Muslim physicians agreed with Dioscorides’ assessment of pears, but also recommended them to strengthen the stomach and suppress thirst. The fruit was used in a digestive conserve, made with sweet unripe pears submerged in honey and then slightly cooked.
In the Syrian dialect, pears are known as ‘ijjāṣ‘ (إجّاص), the usual word for plum in other varieties.
pears in al-Ghafiqi’s herbalpears in an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica (University of Bologna)
This unusual dish from The Exile’s Cookbook is made with a vegetable that had been imported from the East by the famous Ziryab (9th century). The lamb is cut into chunks and cooked wit olive oil, murri, onions, garlic and a variety of spices and herbs, such as cumin, coriander and citron leaves. The asparagus is cooked separately with vinegar, and coloured with saffron. The third component is eggs, which are fried in a casserole dish with aromatics, after which the asparagus and lamb are added in alternate layers. To cap things off, some more eggs are required — it’s an Andalusian dish after all! — combined with spices and saffron. The mixture is poured on top, followed by egg yolks for garnish before taking the casserole to the oven and so the yolks can set. Not enough eggs, I hear you shriek? Not to worry, why not add a garnish of split [boiled] eggs before serving, as well as a sprinkling of cinnamon and ginger. Not only does it taste wonderful, but it also gives you a few days’ worth of proteins!
This delicious recipe from The Sultan’s Feast is made with fish coated in flour and fried in sesame oil — in case this reminds you of something, well, yes, it does bear an uncanny resemblance to the national English fish dish! What makes the recipe exceptional, however, is that the fish is put on a bed of tahini, spiced with pepper and the aṭrāf al-ṭībspice blend, added with onions, and cooked in vinegar and saffron. It goes extremely well with some crusty bread!
Violets Viola odorata), known in Arabic as banafsaj (بنفسج) were used for their medicinal properties in medieval Islamic medicine and were thought to be useful against a wide variety of ailments, including coughs, tumours (when used in a poultice), headaches (when cooked with barley flour), scorpion bites, palpitation, varicose vein, fevers, mumps, toothaches, and haemorrhoids. Some sources refer to the best variety coming from Arjan, in Iran.
The petals of violets were used to make a drink, preserve, syrup, oil, or jam. Violet conserve (مربّى, murabbā) was said to be good for coughs and a coarse throat, though it was also enjoyed by those in good health! Violet oil (دهن, duhn) was used as a soporific or to loosen the joints, especially when made with gourd seeds or sweet almonds.
An Egyptian Mamluk cookery book includes a violet air freshener, known appropriately as ‘banafsajiyya’, made rose water infused with musk and civet. Interestingly enough, the twelfth-century physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi commented on the fact that Egyptian violets had an exceptionally sweet scent, but the people in Egypt did not know how to produce oil from it in the proper way, or to preserve it.
in Medieval Europe, violets were partiuclarly popular for their scent and attractive bright colour, and the leaves and flowers were eaten in salads, as well as in conserves and syrups. Medicinally, they were thought to be cooling and cleansing, and that smelling violets had a calming effect on the nerves. The Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179) gave a recipe for violet oil for curing vision.
.illustration of violets in al-Ghafiqi’s herbalillustration of violets in the Tacuinum Sanitatis, a Latin translation of Ibn Butlan’s Taqwim al-Sihha
A recipe from an 11th-century pharmacological encyclopedia compiled by the Baghdadi scholar Ibn Jazla. It is very easy to make and involves drying petals from good-quality fragrant violet flowers in the sun and then adding sugar syrup.
Medicinally, the conserve was said to be good for the chest and useful against coughs and roughness in the throat.
Violet conserve recipe in a copy of Ibn Jazla’s text in the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland
