Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 28

powdered rice. A dish called al-aruzziyya
contains meat and seasonings (pepper,
dried coriander and dill ), into which a
small amount of powdered rice is added
during cooking and washed (whole) rice
towards the end of the preparation. A
further use for rice is found in the well-
known Egyptian spiced beverage sūbiyya ,
which could be made with either wheat
or rice. And, as with certain other bev-
erages, this could have been made in
both an intoxicating and a legal, non-
alcoholic, version. The method of prepar-
ing rice flour is given in one receipt for
use in another preparation called u ª nān ,
a perfumed (powdered, pasty?) mixture
for washing and scenting the clothes and
hands. Finally, rice was also used in mak-
ing vinegar.
The remaining extant mediaeval Ara-
bic cookbooks contain dishes similar in
style to these just mentioned. One, aruzz
mufalfal , which appears in several versions,
was evidently very popular and ressembles
a type of Turkish pilaw . Made with spiced
meat and/or chick peas or pistachio nuts,
the dish may contain rice coloured with
saffron, white rice alone or a combination
of both. A variation of this dish, called al-
mu ¡ addara , made from lentils and plain
rice, is similar to the modern preparation
of the same name. Modern uses of rice
which may not go back earlier than the
8th/14th century include rice presented
alone as accompaniment to other dishes
and as a filling for vegetables such as
courgettes and the leaves of the cabbage
and vine.

cultivation of the vine in the majority of
mediaeval Muslim countries may appear
paradoxical. Nevertheless, it is incontest-
able, and is explained by the force of tra-
dition in some countries where the vine
has long been established, by the mul-
tiple uses of the grape (fresh fruit, dried
raisin, vinegar, pharmaceutical uses, the
lees as fertilizer, etc.), by the survival of
non-Muslim communities, and also by
the laxity of many Muslims themselves.
This vitality is attested in particular, per-
haps due to the written tradition, by the
very considerable and exceptional place
that the Muslim agronomists accord to
the vine in comparison with the other
species studied, from the easterner Ibn
Wa ª iyya or the Calendar of Cordova to
the Andalusians of the 5th/11th and the
6th/12th centuries, to whom we owe the
essential part of that which will be sum-
marized below. Their knowledge resulted
from the combination of the data of the
ancient authors, rediscovered and assimi-
lated (with, in Spain, Junius = Columella
added to the sources known in the Orient)
with the intensive day-to-day experience
constantly renewed.
To summarize this knowledge is dif-
ficult, since one of the principal char-
acteristics of the cultivation methods
described is precisely the meticulousness
of their application and the multiplic-
ity of the methods followed. Neverthe-
less, it appears generally that the vines
cultivated, more numerous than in our
days and transported by the Arabs from
one end of their conquered lands to the
other, did not remain stabilized and were
the object of experiments of selection and
acclimatization that we know particularly
with regard to Spain (between the plain
and the mountain, for example), but that
were also tested in the East, where Ibn
al-Faīh and the Persian agronomists of
the Mongol period in particular preserve

(D. Waines)

The Vine (Ar. karm )

To one who knows the official attitude
of Islam towards wine, the vitality of the