[Sca-cooks] camels

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

Stefan wrote:
>
>However, if anyone has any period camel recipes, I'd like to have them
>for the Florilegium. There's already some strange animals in the
>exotic-meats-msg file.


Not period, and not exactly a recipe, but:

"In preparation for a wedding or other feast in the Gulf countries a jointed
camel may occasionally be found simmering slowly in a huge aluminium pot
over an open fire. Chopped onions, saffron threads, cardamom pods, cinnamon
bark, cloves, pirced loomi and peppercorns are added to the pot, which is
occasionally stirred with a long-handled, oversized ladle.
(Traditional Arabic Cooking by Miriam Al Hashimi)

>Do male camels not make good beasts of burden? Perhaps they are harder
>to control? Or do the Arabs milk camels?

I believe they do milk them, yes. To quote Clifford Wright (A Mediterranean
Feast): "The camel driver almost never eats their flesh and barely makes a
living from their milk, butter, and cheese. In fact, Abou-Lughod's study of
the Awlad-Ali tribe of Bedouin in the Western Desert of Egypt ... tells us
that Bedouin families kept large sheep herds and camels for prestige, not
for sustenance." (Reminds me of some of my Icelandic ancestors, who kept
large horse herds for prestige. They also mostly preferred mares. You only
need one full-grown stallion for the herd, the rest were just trouble, or
they had to be gelded. The mares were also generally easier to tame and
easier to control.)

Nanna