SC - New World Foods-rant (was: turkey)

[Thomas Gloning]

Ras commented on a passage of mine:
<< "...<snip>.......Sure, the recipe statistics looks different for
other cultures. ..."

... I fail to see the relevance of your 
statement. What is your point? >>>

By distinguishing "cultures", I was trying to make my 'recipe
statistics' statements more explicit. As I said before, these statements
were made in the turkey-discussion and were meant to be true _in respect
to_ Italian-, English-, French-, Spanish-, Catalan- and German-language
recipes [I prefer to speak of languages now, in order to avoid the
difficult notion of culture]. Cariadoc rightly pointed out, that these
'recipe statistics' statements were not universally true by giving the
Arabic-language examples. So I tried to modify the statements, in order
to make clear that I was _not_ speaking about Arabic-, Chinese- or
Babylonian-language etc. recipes. That's all. I hope you can understand
the desire to make TRUE statements ...

Re: superiority of cultures: In making more explicit what I was speaking
about I made NO claims in respect to the superiority of cultures or
languages. The case is somewhat similar to the case when I make the
statement "It is raining" meaning 'It is raining today in Marburg', and
someone says: "False! It is NOT raining in New York!", and I modify my
statement "OK, OK! It is raining today, 14.2.2000, in Marburg/Lahn,
Germany". No claim intended that Marburg/Lahn is superior to New York
City ... Only clarifying what I am speaking about.

<<< ... all the sources His Grace posted are Andalusian sources ... >>>

- -- True, the 'Manuscrito Anónimo' published by Huici Miranda in Arabic
in the 'Revista del Instituto de Estudios Islámicos en Madrid' (1961/2)
and translated into modern Spanish (1966) seems to be by an Andalusian
author. The _text_ is said to be 13th century (Huici Miranda) viz. "end
of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century" (Grewe 142).
Note, that the _manuscript_ that contains this text was written in 1604
"en letra magribi" (p.7 and 12 of Huici Miranda's introduction 1966). --
The problem, whether or not _all_ of these recipes are old, has not been
mentioned by Huici Miranda nor by Grewe, as far as I can see. And it
_is_ a problem.

- -- The work edited by Benchekroun seems to be 13th century and
Andalusian OR Marrocain.

- -- Al-Baghdadi's 13th century "Kitab al-tabikh", edited by Da'ud Chelebi
(Mosul 1934) and reissued in 1964, translated by Arberry in 1939, is not
Andalusian.

- -- The _text_ of the "Kitab al-tabikh" by al-Warraq, edited by Oehrnberg
and Mroueh in 1987, is said to be 10th century, the three manuscripts,
preserving the text are somewhat later. Not Andalusian.

- -- The several manuscripts of the "Kitab al-Wusla...", Nanna mentioned,
are described by Rodinson in his "Recherches sur les documents arabes
relatifs a la cuisine" (1949, p.117ff.). Some _manuscripts_ are not
dated, some are dated in the 14th century. According to Rodinson, there
is some evidence that the _text_ was written between 1294-1304 ("... il
en résulterait que notre ouvrage aurait été écrit au cours de la décade
693-703/ 1294-1304", Rodinson p.127). But there is also some other
evidence that the work was written earlier in the 13th century (p.
128f.). Not Andalusion.

<<< The fact remains that we have many hundreds of recipes dating from 
pre-13th century CE Europe that can be used in feasts. The fact that
they are from Andalusia is totally irrelevant so far as there usefulness
in reproducing pre-13th century CE European feasts. >>>

"Pre-13th century". You mean 1200 or earlier. I think we should not
speak of a "fact" here. There is only one 12th century candidate, the
'Manuscrito Anónimo', and there is some dispute about the date of the
_text_ between Huici Miranda and Grewe. Anyway, the text seems to be
from around 1300, and you are certainly right to point out, that this
Andalusian recipe collection is very important.

Again: My recipe statistics was not meant to dismiss the "many hundreds"
or the non existent 12th century or otherwise 13th century recipes
[depends on whether Huici Miranda or Grewe's earlier date out of late
12th/early 13th century is correct], but only to defend the many
thousands of 16th century recipes, we have.

***

Ras, please take the fact, that there are xeroxes and books of Rodinson,
Arberry, Benchekroun, Grewe, Goldziher, Mas'udi, Oehrnberg/Mroueh, Peter
Heine, David Waines and Da'ud Chelebi on my desk at present as a kind of
proof that I am seriously interested in "All cookbooks of the world".

Best,
Thomas