SC - Need help getting quince or murri

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Allison wrote:
>  >I can't remember whether this file in the FOOD-CONDIMENTS section
>  >of my Florilegium has the recipe for "real" murri as well as the one for
>>"fake" murri or not. But it might be another source to check: murri-msg
>  >      (32K)  1/ 5/01    Rotted barley paste condiment of Arabia.
>
>I've got that, but if you check His Grace's comments in the Miscelleny,
>you will see that he quotes Charles Perry as saying that real murri may
>be highly carcinogenic.

I seem to recall that Perry revised his opinion, and that it probably 
wasn't carcinogenic. Please correct me, Your Grace, if my memory is 
wrong. My own question would be, how could Perry know if it was 
carcinogenic?

As for "horrible" "rotten" foods:
You probably have condiments in your kitchen that are made from 
"rotten" things, but you don't think of them that way - soy sauce, 
wine, vinegar, sourdough, Worcestershire sauce, cheese, etc.

>I don't want to rot barley in my kitchen any more than I want to scorch
>bread and honey.

Well, the question is, are the words "rot" or "scorch" the best translation?

I've read recipes in which something is translated as "boil in oil", 
but in reading the process, it looks more like it is fried, not 
"boiled", in fat. Translations can sometimes suffer from literalism, 
when a bit more interpretation might make the meaning more clear.

If the barley were fermented, the way, say, for example, sourdough 
starter is, could that not be a form of rotting? How about the way 
soy beans are processed for tempeh or for miso or milk for cheese - 
where an appropriate mold is applied. Neither is horrible and 
hideous, but could qualify as "rotting".

"Scorch" in relation to bread could be "toast until well dried" - 
after all, the browned surface looks a lot like fabric i've scorched 
with my iron. Scorch doesn't mean to burn black.

Or in the Near Eastern context, maybe it means to cook a certain way 
- - in or on a particular heat of fire, or in a particular type of pot, 
which may be unclear to us now. Speculation, i know, but we 
Westerners use all sorts of "rotten" foods - we just don't think of 
them as rotten.

As far as the honey goes, it could just mean to cook for a while to 
reduce the liquid. After all, caramel and toffee are made from burnt 
sugar, and most folks don't think they're horrible :-) Perhaps the 
recipe intends the honey to be somewhat caramelized.

>There must be some sort of modern item to use that
>isn't horrible--these people like to eat well, too!  ['these people'
>meaning modern Muslims and others who like Muslim cooking].  I'd like to
>do some recipes from all these sources I've collected, and while there
>are recipes that don't use murri, many of them do.

I'm not quite sure why murri would be any more "horrible" than soy 
sauce or fish sauce, than which i gather it is milder - or cheese, 
which many Asians think is horrible - it is, after all, rotten milk.

Anahita al-shazhiyya