Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Other utensils found in the kitchen were
roasting skewers (sing.
saffūd
); a copper
basin (
nura)
for washing smaller con-
tainers and vessels in hot water; a large
copper rod-like instrument (
mia
) for
stuffing intestines; a large knife for joint-
ing meat and smaller ones for cutting up
vegetables; several kinds of strainer (
mifāt
)
made of wood or metal; a ladle (
mirafa
)
and a mallet (
mirab
). Spices were crushed
or powdered in a mortar (
hāwun
) and kept
in glass vessels. A similar but larger stone
mortar (
āwun
) was used for pounding
meat or crushing vegetables; while meat
was cut up on a wooden table or large
wooden surface (
iwān
).
As with bread-making operations,
Warrā lists separately implements for
making sweetmeats (
alwā
). Frequently
these dishes were served shaped in the
form of a fish or bird fashioned thus by
means of a mould (
ālab
, pl.
awālib
). In
other cases sweetmeats were presented at
a table decorated in a manner appropri-
ate for the occasion. The thick syrupy
substance which was the base of many
kinds of
alwā
was stirred slowly in a pan
over the fire with utensils called an
iām
and a
asba fārisiyya.
Some preparations
were rolled out after cooking on a marble
slab (
ruāma
) before being cut into indi-
vidual pieces. (The above data may be
compared with Athenian household uten-
sils in the classical period.)
The separate lists of utensils for different
tasks mentioned in al-Warrā's work sug-
gests that at least in the larger, prosperous
households both a baker and possibly a
sweetmaker might have been retained in
addition to a cook and other assistants. It
may indeed be the case too, as Pellat has
proposed, that the baker's (
abbāz
) initial
function evolved into that of a chief kitchen
steward or even household majordomo.
The sweetmaker, on the other hand, may
have been more often a market-based spe-
cialist commissioned to make his wares in
people's kitchens when the need or occa-
sion demanded. By and large, therefore, a
household's status was marked socially, in
part, by its degree of independence from
the commercial cooked food establish-
ments of the market which catered more
to the needs of other sections of the pop-
ulation. Despite allusions in the
Thousand
and One Nights
to “sending out” for food
cooked in the market, the
isba
manuals
convey the impression that such fare was
to be regarded with some suspicion. This
impression is underlined by the existence
of one market institution which must have
served many urban households. Dishes
initially prepared in the kitchen could
be taken to the communal oven (
furn
),
cooked there and returned to the kitchen
to be garnished with chopped vegetable
leaves and additional spices. Preparation
of such a dish in the kitchen ensured a
control over its quality; for its part, the
furn
served the needs of households which
possessed neither adequate kitchen space,
equipment or labour for meal preparation
or else catered for a household's special
festive occasions. In any event, the very
affluent establishments would seldom, if
ever, require the services of a communal
oven manager.
Although we do not possess data on
the day-to-day details of kitchen manage-
ment, food preparation was a time-con-
suming and labor-intensive process. So
too were the efforts to keep the cooking
pots and pans clean in order to prevent
the food becoming spoiled. Al-Badādī's
instructions in his mid-7th/13th century
cookbook run briefly as follows: “The
utmost care must be taken when washing
the utensils used in cooking and the pans;
let them be rubbed with brick dust, then
with powdered dry potash and saffron
and finally with the fresh leaf of citron”.
The opening chapter of al-Warrā's work
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