SC - Hummus and Other Questionably Period Foods

[david friedman]

At 10:05 AM -0400 7/5/99, Michelle \"TJ\" Brunzie wrote:

>Though on the topic of hummus, tomatoes, and paprika preventing modern
>Middle Eastern cuisine from being an adequate substitute for true "period"
>dishes, is there a webpage or some other easily accessible resource which
>offers a comprehensive listing of which foods *are* period?

1. There is an extended essay on the subject in the Miscellany; an old
edition is webbed, with the relevant part at:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/cooking_from_primary_sources.html

2. The way you put your question suggests that what is wrong with using
modern Middle Eastern cuisine as a substitute for period cuisine is that it
contains out of period ingredients; if that were true, you could simply
limit yourself to modern dishes that didn't have any out of period
ingredients. But the out of period  ingredients aren't the problem, they
are the evidence--evidence that Islamic cooking has changed substantially
over the intervening centuries. So if you use modern recipes with only
period ingredients, you are still doing modern cooking--just modern cooking
that doesn't have the particular changes from period cooking that are
easiest to identify.

Consider the case of hummus. All of the usual ingredients (except paprika,
which I use when I make it) are found in period Islamic cookbooks (tahini
isn't, so far as I know, but sesame seeds, which tahini is made from, are).
But, so far as we know, that particular way of using those ingredients
wasn't done in period.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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