SC - Authenticity Buffs

[Sue Clemenger]

At 9:26 PM -0400 5/9/00, RButler96 at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 5/9/00 5:04:34 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>grizly at mindspring.com writes:
>
>  > Recipes are not falling from trees for us in regards East of Venice.
>
>     I would suggest that you look up the Islamic Cookery Book I listed.
>
>     This lists mainly items served in Baghdad.  They do have to be redacted.
>However, there is another book "A Book of Middle Eastern Food" by Claudia
>Roden.  This one is not completely period, but contains some recipes from the
>above period reference that are redacted for convenience.


Claudia Roden is a fine source; it was through her that I first 
discovered al-Baghdadi about thirty years ago. But almost none of her 
recipes are period.

You have to be careful to distinguish between the statement that a 
dish exists in a medieval source and the statement that this is the 
recipe for it. Take a look, for example, at Rishta. She correctly 
says that Rista is in al-Baghdadi. But if you compare her recipe with 
his, you can see that they have very little to do with each other. 
She is giving a modern recipe for a modern version of a dish that 
existed, in a different version, in the thirteenth c.

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/