SC - A murri question

[Adler, Chris]

Hmm. Ras, you say that your murri comes out quite thick and isn't at all
liquidy? Is this the true murri or the Byzantine murri?

Double hmmm...

Okay, could you good cooks on the list give me some input, please? I made
Byzantine murri (from His Grace's Miscellany) for a Middle Eastern feast two
years ago and was incredibly unhappy with the result. 

It was the *only* time in six years that I've redacted/made a period recipe
and found the resulting dish completely unpalatable... not just bland, over-
or under-spiced, or wrong in texture, but absolutely unpleasant and nasty! 

Just to underscore this, I grew up eating lots of Middle Eastern, Indian,
and Asian cuisine, as well as a lot of fairly authentic non-Americanized
European dishes, so I'm used to **strong** flavors and some odd foods (organ
meats, etc.).

I should note that my murri was *very* liquid - not at all thick or
pastelike.

Since that experience, I've often wondered why the murri was so awful, since
I know that it was a very common condiment/ingredient in period Middle
Eastern and Andalusian cuisine. I figured that I must have done something
wrong. Since I want to do more medieval Middle Eastern redacting, I'd very
much like some advice on how to make this recipe correctly.

The only derivation I made from Duke Sir Cariadoc's printed recipe was the
use of quince - I could not find fresh quinces in any of the public markets,
health food stores, or supermarkets in the Rochester, NY area, so I ended up
using a couple of tablespoons of quince jelly as a substitute. (Yes, I
already had wheat starch and nigella in my kitchen.)

Copied below from the online Miscellany is the recipe I used. Any comments
on how to do this better - or  a source for quinces - would be greatly
appreciated!

Toodles, Katja

Byzantine Murri 
Kitab Wasf, Sina'ah 52, p. 56, Sina'ah 51, p. 65: Charles Perry tr. 
Description of byzantine murri [made] right away: There is taken, upon the
name of God the Most High, of honey scorched in a nuqrah [perhaps this word
means 'a silver vessel'], three ratls; pounded scorched oven bread, ten
loaves; starch, half a ratl; roasted anise, fennel and nigella, two uqiyahs
of each; byzantine saffron, an uqiya; celery seed, an uqiyah; syrian carob,
half a ratl; fifty peeled walnuts, as much as half a ratl; split quinces,
five; salt, half a makkuk dissolved in honey; thirty ratls water; and the
rest of the ingredients are thrown on it, and it is boiled on a slow flame
until a third of the water is absorbed. Then it is strained well in a clean
nosebag of hair. It is taken up in a greased glass or pottery vessel with a
narrow top. A little lemon from Takranjiya (? Sina'ah 51 has Bakr Fahr) is
thrown on it, and if it suits that a little water is thrown on the dough and
it is boiled upon it and strained, it would be a second (infusion). The
weights and measurements that are given are Antiochan and Zahiri [as] in
Mayyafariqin. 
1 ratl = 12 uqiya = 1 pint
1 Makkuk = 7.5-18.8 liters dry measure 
The following quantities are for 1/32 of the above recipe. The first time I
used more bread and the mixture was too thick. 
3 T honey
1 1/2 oz bread
1 T wheat starch
2/3 t anise
2/3 t fennel
(2/3 t nigela)
1/4 t saffron
1/3 t celery seed
1/4 oz carob
1/4 oz walnut
1 1/2 oz quince
1/2 c salt in 3 T honey
1 pint water
lemon (1/4 of one)