Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 166

of the dish is its sweet-sour flavour, other
recipes for zirbā call for meat ( lam ) or a
combination of meat and fowl, a practice
found today, for example, in North Afri-
can cooking. Fourthly, recipe references
to slaughtering and cleaning an animal
or bird indicate that fresh meat could be
had from livestock, for example goats and
chickens, kept by the household. Finally,
a word on the use of spices in cooking.
A spice combination in common use
throughout the Middle East was cinna-
mon, coriander (often plus cumin), with
pepper and saffron widely employed as
well, while regional preferences probably
also existed. The essential oils of pepper
and cinnamon were known for their anti-
septic, preservative properties. Their use
was likely as much a matter of aesthetics
as anything, their preservative function
being useful when left over food could be
served the following day, with the flavour
of the dish perceptibly enhanced. This
“spice spectrum” was inherited from the
Middle East and transformed much of the
European cuisine from the 14th century
onward. The achievement of balance in
bouquet and flavour between “aromatic”
(e.g. cinnamon) and “pungent” (e.g. cori-
ander) spices was another feature of the
cuisine.
Popular meat dishes were also pre-
pared in milk or with milk products; for
example, maliyya was a dish of lamb (or
kid) with finely-chopped dried curd cheese
( mal ) sprinkled on top, while maīra was
meat cooked in soured milk.
Other dishes containing meat were
known, however, by a vegetable or fruit
highlighted in it. Thus isfānāiyya was
a spinach (and meat) dish, tuffāiyya an
apple dish, and salamiyya a dish of tur-
nip, chicken, onion, cheese and season-
ings. In the gardens and orchards of the
urban Middle East, vegetables and fruits
were seasonally available the year round.
In the mediaeval culinary lore, vegetables

( buūl ) included edible plants which today
would be considered herbs such as mint,
dill, fresh coriander and fennel. Fruits
( fawākih ) were classified as dried and fresh;
dried fruits included soft fruit like apples
and apricots as well as nuts like almonds,
pine seeds and pistachios. Fresh fruit, the
most common being dates, of which there
were said to be more than three hundred
varieties, was also used in cooked dishes
or else consumed before or after a meal.
Plant food classified as “grains” or “seeds”
( ubūb ) included chick peas, lentils and the
mungo bean ( mā ) and the grasses wheat,
barley and rice.
Vegetables prepared alone without
meat formed another broad category
of victuals for the table. They could be
served hot or cold. One process was to
stew the vegetable and then blend into
it a quantity of oil into which seasonings
had been lightly heated, and finally fold
a beaten egg into the mixture while heat-
ing it in a pan. Cold dishes were called
bawārid , and were prepared not only from
vegetables, but also from meat, fowl and
fish. Frequent ingredients of vegetable
bawārid were vinegar and a sweetening
agent, sugar or honey.
Fish dishes were popular as well. Rather
than being stewed, they were generally
prepared in a (frying) pan. Fresh fish
rather than salted or dried fish appear to
be the norm; it was recommended wash-
ing the fish thoroughly first, including
scaling and gutting, lightly flouring and
then frying it. The dish might be simple,
prepared for example with pepper, garlic,
finely chopped fresh coriander and onion
cooked into a kind of sauce which was
served over the fish at table. Or else the
cleaned fish could be filled and covered
with a highly seasoned pasty stuffing and
baked slowly in the communal oven.
The cereals wheat, barley and rice
were probably common to the tables of
the urban leisure class and poor alike.