[Sca-cooks] Period Islamic breads (was Andalusian feast)

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>What information do you have on bread in al-Islam in period? We have
>one recipe that is used for a kind of tharda, one Mughal pan bread,
>and not much else. Are there pictures anywhere, or travelers'
>descriptions? I don't remember ibn Battuta going into that much
>detail (he does have pricing information on foodstuffs), but I wasn't
>looking for it.
>--
>David/Cariadoc

There are a number of bread-y recipes in both the Anonymous
Andalusian cookbook and al-Baghdadi, all of which are used with some
kind of filling (either wrapped, layered, or stuffed), if my memory
serves me. Some of these bread-y things seem remarkably like bread-y
things i ate in Morocco last year. I am not claiming some long
unbroken line of bread-making without change, but there does seem to
be some sort of continuity.

At a Fez "palace" restaurant i was served something that was
virtually identical to Isfanakh Mutajjan, same ingredients (well,
maybe no cinnamon), same finished product. It was quite a shock. I
don't know what the Fassis called it. But i feel certain they weren't
reading al-Baghdadi. When all my stuff is out of storage, i'll see if
any of my Moroccan cookbooks have a recipe... OK, i'm rambling - this
was to point out some sort of continuity of cuisine. Certainly there
have been changes, too.

None of the historic recipes IIRC are like modern European and
American bread. Since we have no Andalusian recipes for a type of
bread that would be served as-is at the table, i base my choices of
bread i serve at Near Eastern feasts on my admittedly 20th and 21st
century experiences of eating and cooking a wide range of modern Near
Eastern cuisines in various parts of the US. I have eaten in
restaurants that were aimed at serving their Near Eastern
communities, rather than stylish restaurants aimed at non-Near
Eastern diners. I have eaten at Levantine and Armenian church
bazaars. I spent a month travelling around Morocco and Andalucia. I'm
saying all this so it is clear that my experience is broad and not
limited to a few Americanized restaurants, although i have eaten at
those too.

Pita bread, in my modern experience, appears to me to be chiefly
Levantine. The modern Persians eat a wide variety of leavened flat
breads, and there was an *incredibly* wide range of bread-y things in
Morocco, but no pita.

Modern Moroccan breads range from flat, extremely thin, translucent
sheets of pan-cooked semolina dough stretched close to the size of
lavosh to relatively small, low-domed loaves of leavened semolina
bread baked in the local baker's oven in the medina. There was even
an wonderful fragrant loaf made with a little egg, scented with
orange flower water, and sprinkled with spice seeds. But there was no
"pocket bread".

I may not have made it clear, but a number of the filled/stuffed
bread-y things in both the Anon. Andalus. and al-Baghdadi remind me
of various modern Moroccan breads. Therefore i suspect, but have no
historical evidence, that 13th century Andalusian bread would be
closer to modern Moroccan bread than to modern Levantine pita.

Both the modern Afghan nan and Persian sangak have a somewhat yellow
crumb, like modern Moroccan bread and thus are closer to modern
Moroccan bread than lavosh is. And lavosh is closer to some than pita
is.

So i see no reason to serve modern Levantine pita at an Andalusian
feast, and i see some reason to serve other breads from the range of
available modern Near Eastern breads. The Mughal bread, possibly of
Persian origin, is rather like modern chapatis, and, well, in my
experience chapatis do not have pockets like pita nor are they
"tough" like pita, but rather are flat and tender more like lavosh. I
suggest lavosh as it is more readily available, in my experience, in
a variety of places in the US, than the Afghan and Persian breads are.

Anahita