SC - Fat tailed sheep

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"Alderton, Philippa" wrote:
> 
> I remember a fe months ago, we had a thread in fat tailed sheep, and a few
> questions have come up on another List I'm on. Anybody have any references,
> whether to recipes, commentary, or other references?

>From Reay Tannahill's "Food in History":

"The pastoral peasant tradition of the Near East contributed the oil in
which almost every Baghdad dish was put to cook -- alya, the fat
rendered from sheep's tails. Time after time al-Baghdadi began his
instructions with the words, 'Cut meat into middling pieces; dissolve
tail and throw away the sediment. Put the meat into this oil and let it
fry lightly...' The popularity of tail fat may have had something to do
with the existence of the local fat-tailed sheep, though whether as
cause or effect remains a matter for debate."

As both Ras and Tannahill state, al-Baghdadi is full of references to
cooking in rendered tail fat. It may not be a 100% valid assumption that
what they're talking about is the fat-tailed sheep we know, but it seems
pretty reasonable. Even if alya is presumed to be a modern term, do we
know if anything like it appears in al-Baghdadi in its original text?
   
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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