![]() In 13th-century Syria, Rodin writes, we know of five major cookery volumes in circulation: copied by hard-working scribes, and perhaps loaned to neighbours or friends. They, too, might have been stymied when trying to find ambergris or Damascus citron, and might have substituted plain local rose petals for the Nusaybini roses demanded by a recipe. We can imagine that, in using these recent translations, we are eating like the medieval middle classes. Cookbooks, he imagines, “formed a regular part of a commercial scribe’s business”. They were built for practical use and, as Perry writes, “more or less cheaply copied”. Al-Warraq was not a celebrity chef, but rather a scribe who compiled the collection for an unnamed patron, one who apparently wanted to know how the kings and caliphs ate.īy the 13th century, Arabic cookbooks had been adapted for the aspiring classes. It was translated to English in 2007 by Nawal Nasrallah. Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq’s 10th-century, Kitab al-Tabikh (Book of Dishes), is the earliest known title. Many of these cookbooks must have disappeared. At that time, so far as we know, Arabic speakers were “the only people in the world who were writing cookbooks”, he adds. There was “a sudden explosion of cookbooks in Arabic” from the 10th to 13th centuries, Perry writes. Scribes would have been instructed to write down at least a few details about each “so that it could be easily passed on and the instructions read out to illiterate cooks.”īut other Baghdadis were eager to feast as the caliphs did, and cookery soon moved beyond palace walls. Codifying recipes would have begun in huge court kitchens, chef and food scholar Rodin writes in her foreword to, Scents and Flavors. Plate, 14th century Ĭaliphs commissioned the invention of new dishes, as well as poems and songs about food. None of these collections has made their way down to us, but the habit of recipe-writing had moved into Baghdad court culture by the 10th century. In the Sassanid Persian courts, gentlemen kept personal recipe collections, according to Perry, who is a food historian. We have three clay tablets, according to Nasrallah, with recipes “ranging from simple stews to the complex bird pies”. Recipes were written in the Akkadian language starting around 1700 BCE. Some recipes have also been adapted for contemporary cooks in Nawal Nasrallah’s In My Iraqi Kitchen, Anny Gaul’s Cooking with Gaul and in a handful of medieval cooking videos by Charles Perry.Īll human cultures have recipes, but recipe-writing seems to have developed in Western Asia. This and other cookbooks could be of use to scholars, but they are also fun for history buffs and amateur chefs, the recipes making for a fantastic dinner party. Keep reading list of 4 items list 1 of 4 McDonald’s franchises in Middle East at odds over Israel-Hamas war list 2 of 4 Lack of safety nets hurt Ghana’s most vulnerable as economic woes deepen list 3 of 4 UK warns of Russia laying ‘sea mines’ to deter Black Sea cargo ships list 4 of 4 A new kind of 3D-printed carrot, in the words of its Qatar-based inventors end of listīut medieval Arabic cookbooks have seen something of a revival – a growing number of them edited and translated into English, as part of a journey that brings old foods to new palates.Įarlier this year, a paperback edition of a 13th-century Syrian cookbook, Scents and Flavors, appeared with a foreword by Cairo-born cookbook author and scholar Claudia Roden.
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