Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 157

available on the high cuisine of the court,
including ingredients such as various
types of hot and cold meat, stuffed vine
leaves and sweet date purée. The first five
centuries of Islamic rule are again rather
poorly documented. The available infor-
mation, mostly from Muslim travellers
and the occasional literary source, points
to a heavy reliance on bread and cere-
als, an important role for (roasted) meat,
including game, especially for nomads
and soldiers, and the use of condiments
such as pickled vegetables ( turī ), sour
grapes ( ūra ), dried lemons and walnuts,
which would remain essential to Persian
cooking. It is only in the Mongol period
that the current Persian cuisine became
heavily influenced by Eastern traditions
and took its current shape. Raīd al-Dīn,
who first entered Mongol employ as a
head cook in the household of the ān
and who later employed a Chinese cook
in his own household, may have been
instrumental in the transmission of Chi-
nese cuisine to Iran.
The first period for which we have
abundant information on eating and cook-
ing practices is that of the afawids. Euro-
pean observers were struck at the frugality
of eating habits. Chardin was among those
who noted how Persians skipped breakfast
except for a cup of coffee and only ate two
proper meals a day. Food was cooked in
earthenware or copper pots coated with
tin. In areas where wood was scarce, such
as the central plateau, cooked food was
eaten at most only once a day, in the late
afternoon, and instead of cooking, peo-
ple in urban areas would get their pilaw
and the ingredients for their soups from
the ubiquitous cookshops. During other
meals, bread and cheese were the main
ingredients. Meat included mutton and
goat. Chicken and pigeon were also part
of the menu of those who could afford it.
Beef was rarely eaten. Chardin's observa-

tion that beef, tough and dry, was only
eaten by the poor in winter is echoed for
the 19th century by Polak and Wills. Even
today, Persians do not favour beef, except
those living in the Caspian provinces. Nor
did game enjoy much popular appeal in
afawid times, despite the enthusiasm
for hunting on the part of the élite, in
part because of the difficulty of abiding
by ritual slaughter, in part because of its
taste. Game was often given as a present
to Christians, who loved it as well as dark
meat and fish. Turkey flesh seems to have
caught on very slowly after its introduc-
tion from the New World via Europe.
Olearius claimed in the 1630s that turkey
was not among the birds eaten, though
under āh Abbās I a Venetian mer-
chant had once brought a few to Ifahān.
A generation later, Tavernier wrote that
the Armenians had brought turkeys and
ways of raising them to Persia, adding that
the meat was only for the court. Some
sources claim that horseflesh was the most
esteemed type of meat. The predilection
for horseflesh at the court of Tīmūr and
the fact that the Mihmān-nāma-i Buārā
calls it the most delicious meat, point
to a Central Asian origin of the taste.
Polak suggested regional variation by say-
ing that Persians did not eat horseflesh
with the exception of the people from
īrwān and the Özbegs, who considered
it a delicacy. Fish, not an ingredient of the
nomadic diet, was naturally mostly con-
fined to the Caspian coast and the Per-
sian Gulf littoral, though trout from the
Caspian region was also served at royal
banquets.
The information that has come to us
from afawid times mostly concerns the
food of the rich and eating practices at
the royal court, as described by Western
visitors who enjoyed the hospitality of the
āh and administrative officials. They
offer information on the royal kitchen as