Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 164

food in the langar-āna , soup-kitchen,
established as a charity around many of
the royal courts to provide simple food for
the poor.

was then removed and dough made from
coarse-ground grain was set on the stones
over which the glowing ashes were placed
until the bread was cooked. Unleavened
bread made in this fashion was called
ubz malla or “roasted” bread, malla refer-
ring to the hot ash and embers. Another
method was a kind of grilling process
which involved the cooking of large thin
loaves on a concave metal plate ( ā )
inverted and supported on stones over a
fire, with the dough placed on the convex
side. Bread was also prepared in the com-
munal oven ( furn) employed by house-
holds among settled hamlet and village
as well as the less affluent urban popula-
tions; either the dough was prepared in
the home and baked in the furn , the baker
retaining a portion of the dough as pay-
ment, or else a poorer quality bread could
be purchased directly from the baker. By
contrast, bread made for a comfortable
urban household was prepared in its own
kitchen from the best wheat flour; the
appliance used was the tannūr , the bee-hive
shaped baking oven of Mesopotamian
origin. Another general contrast between
the urban and rural-nomadic techniques
may be found in methods of food pres-
ervation. In the latter tradition, sun- and
wind-drying of raw materials like meat
were common, desiccation being nature's
own way of preservation. In the urban
kitchen, ingredients such as salt, vinegar,
lemon juice, mustard and other spices
and the process of smoking were used in
addition to the more “natural” means of
preservation. Finally, there was a contrast
in the use of condiments accompanying
a dish and flavourings in food. Compli-
cated preparations like murrī and kawāmi
were commonplace in the urban “high”
cuisine, while natural plant flavourings,
where they could be had, were employed
elsewhere. The cookbooks which have
survived reflect the urban milieu of a

( J. Burton-Page)

Cooking

ab (A) is the action of cooking either
in a pot, by boiling or stewing; or by roast-
ing, broiling, frying or baking. Beyond the
narrow sense of cooking only fleshmeat,
ab meant the transformation from a
raw state of every conceivable foodstuff
for consumption. Possibly the Arabic sub-
stantive for “cook” ( abbā ) also contained
the Hebrew sense of serving food at table,
in addition to its preparation. According
to some lexicons, cooked food, abī , was
distinguished from adīr , the latter speci-
fying fleshmeat cooked in a pot seasoned
with pepper, cumin and the like, while the
former meant meat not thus seasoned; or,
abī meant fleshmeat cooked with broth
or gravy, while a different term applied to
meat prepared without such liquid. It is
evident, however, from the extant medi-
aeval culinary manuals ( kutub al-abī )
that such distinctions did not obtain in
practice, the term “cooked” applying to a
dish comprising any combination of ingre-
dients prepared by any of the methods
noted above. Here, cooking techniques
will be dealt with, together with the main
categories of ingredients used.
Cooking techniques varied somewhat
according to the social location of the
“kitchen”. Bread making,an activity com-
mon to all segments of the population,
llustrates the point well. J.L. Burckhardt
observed the following method among
the Bedouin of the Arabian peninsula in
the early 19th century. First, a circular
“element” of stones was heated. The fire