[Sca-cooks] ebay alert - Arberry/Perry

[Cindy M. Renfrow]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1532924142

"Here is a gathering of translations of and commentaries on significant
texts relating to cookery in the medieval Arab world. In the
first place there is a reprinting of the late Professor A.J. Arberry's
translation of al-Baghdadi's Kitab al- Tabikh, a thirteenth-century
text. This was first published as 'A Baghdad Cookery Book' in 1939. Then
there is a collection of studies relating to medieval Arab
cookery, and particularly its relationship to the cookery of Europe, by the
French linguist, historian and sociologist Maxime
Rodinson. These translations are new to the wider public. His most
substantial essay is a consideration of the major text, Kitib
a]-wusla ila a]-ha bib li- wasfaltayyibit wa a]-tib (The book, of the bonds
of friendship or a description of good dishes and
perfumes).

The work of the American scholar Charles Perry on the cookery of the Middle
East and Central Asia has attracted tremendous
plaudits. Here may be read some entertaining and instructive chapters on
aspects of medieval Arab cookery and, most important of
all, here is his translation of the extensive fourteenth-century recipe
collection Kitab wasf'al-at'ima a]-mu'tada (The description of
familiar foods), as well as studies of later texts such as the Kit.ab
a]-tibakha (The book of cookery).

'To study these manuscripts is to sense the medieval Arab world's busy
trade in cookbooks. The earlier manuscript of K. Wasf itself
based on al-Baghdadi and its sources, as well as many others, already shows
signs of perhaps dozens of generations of copying,'
writes Charles Perry. What is even more remarkable to the modern reader is
the degree to which there seems to be a continuous
thread stretching back from our own kitchens to those of thirteenth-century
Bagdad or Cairo, and thence to ancient Persia or to the
burning fires of Frankish crusaders."

Cindy