Category: Vegetarian

This is another example of a so-called ‘counterfeit’ dish (مزوّرة, muzawwara), which derived its name from the fact that they were vegetable variants of meat dishes. They were intended for sick people as vegetables were thought to be lighter, but a conscious attempt was made to try and make the vegetarian counterpart look like the original in order to deceive the diner to persuade them to eat!

This particular recipe is a counterfeit version of the sanbusaj (سنبوسج), which usually had a meat filling, and was made by pounding chard (silq, سلق) with coriander, lemon juice and vinegar. The mixture is then wrapped in thin leavened sheets of dough (ruqaq, رقاق) and deep-fried in olive oil.

It was designed — and prescribed — by the private physician for the great Ayyubid Sultan Salah al-Din (Saladin), who drove out the Crusaders. His name was Ibn Jumayʿ (ابن جميع, d. 1198); born in Cairo, his expertise was such that he was called ‘the teacher of his Age’ (Ustādh zamānihi). One of the most noteworthy facts recorded about him is that he allegedly saved someone from being buried alive.

Ibn Jumayʿ wrote a number of medical works, such as al-Irshād li-maṣāliḥ al-anfus wa-al-ajsād (الإرشاد لمصالح الأنفس والأجساد, ‘Guidance for the Welfare of Souls and Bodies’) and a highly interesting ‘Treatise to Salah al-Din on the Revival of the Art of Medicine’ (المقالة الصلاحية في إحياء الصناعة الطبّية , al-Maqāla al-Salāḥiyya fī Iḥyā’ al-ṣina’a al-ṭibbiyya), a history of (Greek) medicine. He also wrote treatises on the properties and uses of individual foodstuffs, such as the lemon and rhubarb.

This recipe from 14th-century Egypt requires cultivated fennel, which is called shamār (شمار) here, an infrequent word for this herb, which is usually known as rāziyānaj (رازيانج) and, in the Maghrib and al-Andalus, as nāfiʿ (نافع) or basbās (بسباس).

The fennel is rubbed with salt and then left in a bowl to dry it out. The dairy element is equally easy to do; drain yoghurt and mix in pounded garlic and mint with olive oil. When that is done, it is time to add the yoghurt mixture to the fennel. Before serving, sprinkle some mint and dried rosebuds on top, and dot black olives about the surface. You can eat it immediately.

I guess one could say that this recipe from The Exile’s Cookbook is similar to the famous Buraniyya (بورانية), but without meat. The aubergines should be sliced thinly and then boiled in salt and water before being drenched in a marinade of vinegar, murrī, pepper, coriander, cumin, hand-rubbed oregano, and garlic. They should be squeezed to get rid of any liquid and baked in a casserole with some olive oil. A wonderful snack or main for everyone — yes, it’s even vegan!

This recreation of a 13th-century dish of dried chickpeas from The Exile’s Cookbook is simple to make, but makes for a wonderful vegetarian snack, or side. After cleaning and soaking the chickpeas, they are cooked with onion, pepper, coriander and a little saffron. When they are done, it is time to add some murrī and vinegar and bring to a boil. Then it’s time to serve.

If you think this looks familiar, you’d be right since it may well be a distant ancestor of the modern Tunisian chickpea soup lablabi (لبلابي).

Continuing the partridge theme, this is a recipe from the encyclopedia of simple medicines and foodstuffs (الجامع لمفردات الأدوية والأغذية, al-jami’ li-mufradat al-adwiya wa ‘l-aghdhiya) compiled by the famous Andalusian botanist and pharmacologist, Ibn al-Baytar (d. 1248). The author recommended it as a remedy for abdominal aches and colic. The eggs are very simple to make; after boiling them, they are cooked in vinegar. The result is quite interesting inasmuch as the colouring makes the eggs look as if they are still in their shells! This is another example of how humour and food often went together in the medieval Arab culinary tradition.

A wonderful 13th-century vegetarian recipe for fried battered aubergine — a much-used vegetable in Andalusian cuisine — from The Exile’s Cookbook. The dish was known as al-mughaffar (المغفّر), meaning ‘the protected one’, in reference to the batter covering the aubergine.

It requires sweet aubergines, which after being cut up, are boiled before being battered with a mixture of flour, eggs, spices like pepper, saffron and coriander, as well as a sprinkle of murrī. After the batter acquires the required thickness, it’s time to dredge the aubergine slices and fry them until golden brown. It is served with a sprinkling of murrī, but it was sometimes also accompanied by a sauce made with murrī, pepper, coriander, cumin, oregano and garlic.

The modern globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus) is a member of the thistle family and is a cultivated offspring of the wild cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) . The development of the artichoke is still shrouded in mystery, with both North Africa and Sicily being possible birth places. In Antiquity only cardoon was known, and the Roman natural historian Pliny claimed it was preserved in honey-vinegar with silphium and cumin. There is no evidence that the artichoke was already cultivated then.

In Modern Arabic, the artichoke is known as ardī shawkī (أرضي شوكي) or khurshuf (خرشف); only the latter was used in pre-modern times, with variant spellings kharshaf, khurshūf and ḥarshaf. However, these terms denoted all varieties of artichoke and cardoon. According to the scholar Abū Ḥanīfa al-Dinawari (d. 895), khurshuf resembled field mustard. Additionally, the artichoke/cardoon was also known as kanjar (also kangar) and ʿakkūb and, in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), qannāriya (a borrowing from the Greek κυνάρα). Some scholars, like Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), considered ḥarshaf a kind of kankar. The latter is related to the name of the gum resin of the artichoke, kankarzad (from the Persian kangar-zhad).

The artichoke (and/or the cardoon) was probably introduced into European cuisines by the Arabs, whose word for the vegetable resulted in the Italian carciofo, Spanish alcachofa and Portuguese alcachofra.

Today, the word ʿakkūb — a borrowing from Syriac — no longer refers to the artichoke or cardoon, but to another thistle plant, Gundelia (tournefortii), which has a similar taste to the artichoke and is native to the Levant, where it grows in rocky soil. It is collected from the wild in early spring, and is particularly associated today with Palestinian cuisine; it is cooked in a variety of ways, with meat, tomatoes, and onions and olive oil.

The artichoke was used only very rarely in medieval Arab cuisine; the oldest recipe goes back to the earliest Abbasid tradition, in a yoghurt dish known as jājaq (جاجق), a (vegetarian) yoghurt dish. Interestingly enough, a later Egyptian collection includes three variants of this recipe but none of them calls for artichoke. The only other recipes are found in 13th-century Andalusian cookery books, with four in The Exile’s Cookbook, one with meat and three without. One of them fries them in olive oil, very similar to the preparation of the Gundelia described above. In another recipe from the book, cardoon flowers are recommended for curdling milk to make a honeyed curd, which was eaten with fresh figs.

Medicinally, artichokes (or cardoons) were said to stimulate sexual desire and serve as a diuretic and laxative. When used externally in a compress, the vegetable is allegedly useful against alopecia, while washing one’s hair with its water removes lice! expels phlegm