SC - Period cookshop at Pennsic?

[Cindy M. Renfrow]

At 7:34 PM -0700 8/24/00, Susan Fox-Davis wrote:

>  > Is there any evidence to suggest that the modern qata'if product of
>  > shredded phyllo/borek is what is referred to in Al Baghdadi, etc.?
>  >
>
>No evidence on paper.  It's all just flour and water.  I'd serve it 
>at a banquet, but
>probably wouldn't try to enter it in a documentation-intensive 
>competition situation... yet.

As usual, I am bothered by this distinction. The way you put it 
suggests, at least to my eye, that the problem is not "it isn't true" 
but "I can't document it." But the only reason documentation matters 
is as evidence that something is true.

Prior to Adamantius's post, everyone in this thread was taking it for 
granted that the assertion that shredded phyllo was what al Baghdadi 
referred to was true. No evidence had been offered, and I gather 
noone here has any evidence. "It's all just flour and water" isn't 
really an answer, given the wide range of things you can do with 
flour and water--and besides, we don't even know, at this point, that 
qatâif is just flour and water.

For a little additional information, the following are out of 
Manuscrito Anonimo, a 13th c. Andalusian cookbook--parenthetical 
comments by Charles Perry, the translator.

The Making of Qatâif
Put a potful of water on the fire until it boils, and throw in 
coarsely ground semolina, and cook it on the fire until it becomes 
pudding ('asîda). Then take it out of the pot and put it in a dish; 
boil honey and pour it on top, with pepper, and present it, God 
willing.

[This is an aberrant recipe. Qataif are basically crepes, very thin 
breads or things made from them.]

Jûdhâba with Qatâif

Take a new qaswila [a cazuela or earthenware casserole] and wash it 
and pour in it fresh oil. Then put a qatâif or a ruqâq (thin 
flatbread), according to the size of the mold (the earthenware 
casserole); then break over it four eggs and a handful of ground 
sugar or honey, then add qatîfa [the rarely used singular of qatâif] 
in addition, or two ruqâqs, and break over them four eggs and a 
handful of sugar, and do all this the same as you would chicken. Then 
proceed to cover it all up with fresh milk and a little fresh oil; 
arrange it in the tannur or in the bread oven and put on it the 
chicken or a fat rib or whatever fat meat you wish and leave it until 
it is done, arrange it on the marble, sprinkle with sugar and serve, 
God willing. And if you want to use sugar or almonds in place of 
eggs, it is very excellent.

Recipe for Fidaush (Noodles)

This is made from dough and has three types: the long one shaped like 
wheat grains, the round one like coriander seeds that is called in 
Bijaya (Bougie) and its region humais [literally, little garbanzos] 
and the one that is made in thin sheets, as thin as paper and which 
is food for women; they cook it with gourd, spices and fat; it is one 
of the qatâif. Fidaush is cooked like itriyya [see next recipe].

Recipe for Abbasid Qatâif

[p. 69, recto] It is made from the pierced musahhada that has already 
been mentioned. Take peeled almonds, pound them and let them dry 
until they are like semolina. Add as much again of sugar, spikenard, 
cloves, and Chinese cinnamon. Then take a flatbread (raghîf) of the 
aforementioned musahhada, free of burns, and sprinkle it with those 
almonds and ground sugar aplenty. Sprinkle it with rosewater in which 
some camphor is dissolved, and fold it until it is a half circle. 
Glue the edges with dough wetted in rosewater, and put it in a 
frying-pan full of fresh oil. Boil it, and then take it out 
immediately and remove it so it drains of the oil. Let if float in a 
syrup of roses or julep or skimmed honey. You might make raghîfs on 
raghîfs, filled inside, and glue the margins together, and they will 
turn out circles and halves.

None of which sound like shredded filo. I take it that Charles 
Perry's parenthetical comment sums up at least what he knows--very 
thin breads or things made from them--which is consistent with all 
save the first recipe.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/