[Sca-cooks] Re: Noodles/Pasta - LONG (Charles Perry)

[Sandragood at aol.com]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
For those who may not have access to the articles mentioned by Charles Perry,
his notes on Persian Pasta were reprinted in the Medieval Arab Cookery book
that was printed this year.  It has most if not all the articles published in
the Islamic Culture newsletter/magazine which is what PPC printed.

For those that are unable to obtain either, I have included some excerpts
from them.  I appologize for the length but I know first hand how frustrating
it can be not to have access to or funds to acquire needed refrences.  Being
new to the list I hope I have not overstepped.

Please note that I am unable to include the various alphabet pronunciation
marks (I cannot think of the correct terms for the dots, dashes, etc. that
show up in other languages) and only give the spellings.

These have been taken from the newly published Medieval Arab Cookery by
Maxime Rodinson, A. J. Arberry & Charles Perry, Prospect Books, 2001.

"The first recorded Iranian noodle dish is lakhsha.  There are scattered
references to it in Persian literature, but in the absence of medieval
Persian cookery books we must go to the tenth-century Arabic compilation
Kitab al-Tabikh for a recipe.  The instructions call for a stiff dough of
flour and water, 'rolled out thin with a rolling pin and cut with a knife
into strips.'"

" A noodle of some description was being made in the Greek-speaking world by
the year 500 under the name itria, and one wonders whether there is a
connection between it and lakhsha."

" In Islamic times, at least, itriya referred to a small soup noodle which
could be made by twisting bits of kneaded dough into shape, rather than
rolling and cutting, so the Greek pasta may have been a different sort of
noodle from the start."

"As of the thirteenth century, however, lakhsha had disappeared from Arabic
cookbooks and there was a new word for noodle, rishta, which is still common
in Iran, the Arab world and Turkey.  Rishta is the only word for noodle in
the several thirteenth century Arabic cookbooks and in the poems of the
fourteenth-century Persian rhymester Bushaq (Abu Eshaq-e Hallaj of Shiraz)."

Hope this wets your whistle enough.  I also hope it helps.

THL Elizabeth Donnan
(in the middle of her next A&S research project which this happens to be a
part)