SC - Period Hummus-recipe

[LrdRas at aol.com]

His Grace had indicated that he could not find any recipes similar to Hummus 
in period sources. He also indicated that he could not find any reference to 
sesame seed paste in period sources.  I must disagree with His Grace's 
findings. I found the following recipe (one of 2 containing Tahini) in A 
Collection of Medieval and Renaissance Cookbooks, Vol. 2, pg. Misc-3. It is 
one of the three recipes translated from Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of 
Dishes): Oriental 5000 (British Library) pp.70b, 71a, 74b. 

The finished dish looked and tasted so much like garbanzo based hummus that a 
person with an untrained palette would be hard pressed to tell them apart. In 
fact we made modern hummus and were able to compare them ourselves. I much 
prefer the medieval version below.

Original (translation)- 
White sals. Walnut meats, garlic, pepper, cinnamon, white mustard, Tahini and 
lemon juice.

Redaction-
White sals 
(copyright c 1999 Ras, Elysant, Puck)

1 cp. Walnuts
2 cloves Garlic
1/8 tsp. Black pepper, ground
1/2 tsp. True cinnamon, ground
3/4 tsp. prepared mustard (see notes below)
2 Tblsp Tahini
Lemon juice, as needed

In a food processor combine walnuts and garlic until they form a smooth 
paste. Put walnut mixture in a bowl. Add pepper. cinnamon, mustard and 
Tahini. Mix thoroughly adding lemon juice by the teaspoonful until a smooth 
very thick mixture is achieved.

NOTE: There is a description of mustard as prepared in the medieval middle 
east in another section of Caraidoc's Collection. We used a modern mustard 
that most fit this description. Any country-style mustard would work.

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