Medieval Arab Cookery: Essays and Translations – Maxime Rodinson, AJ Arberry and Charles Perry

03 October 2001 by
Medieval Arab Cookery: Essays and Translations – Maxime Rodinson, AJ Arberry and Charles Perry
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Six danaq = one dirham; 10 dirham = one uqiya; 12 uqiya = one rat. Once you learn that a ratl is about a pound weight or a pint of liquid, you're ready to plunge into the lost world of Arab cooking in Crusader times. > Cookery book addicts who love Claudia Roden's A New Book of Middle Eastern Food (Viking/Penguin) or Anissa Helou's Lebanese Cuisine (Grub Street) will discover the sources of many modern Arabic and Turkish foods in Medieval Arabic Cookery. It describes a style that reached maturity much earlier than French, Italian or British cooking but has been evolving quite slowly ever since. Many ingredients will be familiar - the spices, couscous, vegetables, lamb, poultry and feathered game. But some will come as a surprise, such as soya sauce. The cuisine's originality lies in its combination of sweet and savoury, in the virtuoso use of nuts and the blending of spices. Some of these blends are complex, others more practical. One combination, for a seasoning called atraf al-tib, mixes spikenard, betel, laurel leaf, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, cloves, rose hips, common ash, long pepper, ginger and pepper. Another is simply an effective pairing of cardamom and cloves. The book may seem an intimidating tome - with no pictures and endless footnotes, it is aimed more at scholars than cooks - but it repays lucky-dipping. Among its gems are aubergines fried with caraway, cinnamon and soy, or turnips flavoured with cumin, Syrian cheese and mustard, not to mention trotters stewed with chickpeas, coriander and dill. Navigation isn't easy, because translations of cookery manuscripts are interspersed with lists of recipes in museum libraries and essays on obscure topics such as "What to order in ninth-century Baghdad", as well as introductions and appendices. The recipes themselves, however, are often remarkably clear and easy to follow. Michael Raffael, food writer Medieval Arab Cookery: Essays and Translations - Maxime Rodinson, AJ Arberry and Charles Perry. Prospect Books £35 ISBN 0-907325-91-2
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