Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 196

enumerate the many dainties ( alwiyyāt ),
including pastries, confections of sugar,
sweets and syrups, in whose composition
apricots were used. In connection with
dishes of cooked meat, Arabic works on
the culinary art mention two recipes for
stews involving apricots ( mumuiyya ).
Finally, in the pharmacopeia, the sweet
or bitter kernel of the stone of the apri-
cot yielded an “oil” ( duhn lubb nawā
al-mimi ) beneficial for the treatment
of haemorrhoids, anal tumours and dys-
entery. In the Middle East at the pres-
ent day, among the numerous varieties
of apricots obtained by grafting, one sees
always in the markets the amawī and the
mimi lawzī , whose name has become
by abbreviations milawz . Also to be
found, according to region, are the basūsī ,
the sindiyānī , the baladī and the aamī, all
with a sweet kernel.
In Syria, the name of mumu barrī
is given to the arbutus ( Arbutus unedo )
regarded as a kind of wild apricot because
of the reddish tinge of its fruits; and, in
botany, modern Arabic calls mimi
Amīrīkā the Mammea or Santo Domingo
apricot ( Mammea americana ) and mimi
al-Yābān “apricot of Japan” the Kaki ( Dio-
spyros kaki ).

another kind of preparation, the meat is
initially cooked in a vinegar and raisin
stock. A dish called zabībiyya , probably of
Egyptian provenance, was prepared from
fresh fish with a sweet and sour spiced
sauce poured over it. In the recipes for
substantial main dishes, two kinds of rai-
sin, zabīb amar and zabīb aswad are men-
tioned. The best kind of raisin was large
with a lot of flesh and small seeds.
Raisins occurred also in a variety of
other domestic preparations. For exam-
ple, a kind of “mustard sauce” to accom-
pany fowl was made from raisin extract
( mā zabīb ) and pomegranate seeds (pre-
sumably the acidic variety) in which dried
spices, crushed almonds and salt were
“dissolved”. Raisins were also used in the
preparation of a beverage called fuā , a
sparkling, fermented beer-like liquor. Cer-
tain home-made remedies, like the elec-
tuary ( maūn ), called for a large quantity
of raisins, the seeds of which had to be
removed before cooking; the preparation
was used to avoid stomach disorders after
eating greasy, fatty foods.
In the mediaeval medical literature
devoted to dietetics, raisins are described
as moderately hot and moist in charac-
ter and as having a fattening quality.
Abū Marwān Abd al-Malik b. Zuhr (d.
557/1162) was of the opinion that wine
made from raisins was weaker than that
produced from grape juice.
In the Prophetic medicine ( al-ibb
al-nabawī ) tradition, raisins are also very
positively judged for their many benefits.
Ibn ayyim al-awziyya (d. 751/1350)
provides two traditions, albeit unsound
ones, in which raisins are described by the
Prophet as excellent food which sweeten
the breath and remove phlegm and
fatigue; they were also said to strengthen
the nerves, calm anger and contribute
to a clear complexion. In a similar work
attributed to al-Suyūī (d. 911/1505),

(F. Viré)

Raisins

Zabīb (Ar.) are dried grapes, raisins, or
currants. In the mediaeval Islamic culi-
nary tradition, raisins were deemed indis-
pensable for meat dishes of chicken or
mutton with a sweet-sour character, such
as those of Persian origin called zirbā or
sikbā , in which the sweetness of the dried
grapes (sometimes combined with another
dried fruit like apricot or additional sugar)
is balanced by the acidity of vinegar. In