Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 165

leisure class, although they undoubtedly
contain as well traces of regional or rural
oral cooking traditions. For example, the
preparation sawī was traditionally made
of barley, parched and dried for use on
long journeys; the meal was reconstituted
with water or milk when required. Food
by the same name was sold in the markets
of Badād as a poor man's staple made
from powdered chickpeas. However, in
more affluent households this rustic fare
was made from fine wheat flour sweetened
with sugar or mixed with other ingredi-
ents like pomegranate seeds. In the two
extant cookbooks of Andalusī-North Afri-
can provenance, regional tastes appear
reflected in the frequent use of eggs in
a range of substantial dishes, in the tra-
ditional dish of Berber origin, couscous,
and in dishes associated with particular
locales. The processes and ingredients dis-
cussed below are, however, derived solely
from the culinary manuals.
The most characteristic cooking method
for creating substantial dishes was the
“stew” or “casserole” preparation where
the ingredients (e.g. meat, vegetables, sea-
sonings) were cooked in liquid in a pot
over the heat of a fire. Recipes for meat
dishes other than fowl usually use only
the word “meat” ( lam ) which, appearing
unqualified, should be assumed to mean
mutton, a meat preference supported by
medical opinion. It is impossible to tell
at what age the mutton was deemed best
for eating, whether as hoggets (between
one and two years) or older. Lamb and
kid were also enjoyed. Beef is only infre-
quently mentioned in recipes, possibly
mirroring the medical view that, owing to
its coarse nature, it was more suited to the
toiling and labouring classes. Game meat
such as rabbit, hare, wild cow, wild ass,
gazelle, horse, mountain goat, oryx and
stag were all considered edible. Dishes
containing fowl, especially chicken, were

also popular. In one recipe for the famous
Persian dish sikbā , mutton, beef and
chicken are cooked together.
Typically, these are meat dishes with
vegetables and seasonings, but also with
dried fruit in many cases. The meat in
the first stage of the cooking process may
be sautéed briskly in hot oil to which
water is then added, furthering the cook-
ing, while other ingredients and season-
ings are placed in the pot; conversely,
the meat may first be boiled in a stock
of water and oil to which other ingredi-
ents are added while the cooking process
is brought slowly to an end. A recipe for
zirbā follows the second procedure:
Take a fine quality chicken, joint and
clean it and place in a clean pot. Then
pour over one-half ral of fresh water and
a half ūiyya of good quality oil, some
white of onion and boil all together. When
boiled, pour in white vinegar of half a ral
and two ūiyya of white sugar and one
ūiyya peeled almonds and one ūiyya of
rose water. Add the spices, pepper, cin-
namon and ginger tied up in a fine cloth
so that they do not alter the dish's colour.
Leave on the fire a little, allowing it to
thicken.
This recipe illustrates a number of
interesting points about the mediaeval
cuisine. First, the dish is also Persian, indi-
cating its strong influence upon the cos-
mopolitan character of the urban “high
cooking culture”; many other dishes, such
as arīd, maliyya and maīra , are contri-
butions of traditional Arab provenance.
Second, the recipe gives measures of
ingredients, a rare feature of the corpus
where measures and proportions were left
to the cook's discretion. However, charac-
teristic of the recipes is their usually clear,
step-by-step description of the process of
preparation. Thirdly, zirbā is an example
of the common practice of “meat substi-
tution” in dishes; while the main feature