[Sca-cooks] Bardic Feast, was Sugar Plate/Paste; Stained Glass Sugar

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
>  > Dessert - he requested baqlawa which, again, is not period,

Elaine Koogler suggested:
>  What about the stuffed dates from the Medieval Arab Cookery Book?  I've
>  served them several times now, to rave reviews....and they're fairly easy to
>  make.

I made these for Iron Chef Persian. They are stuffed with blanched
almonds according to every translation i've read, not with marzipan
as someone suggested, although it would certainly taste good. I used
them to decorate the round platters of Bustaniya (fruited chicken and
lamb) which was mounded in the center, surrounded by saffron rice,
with the Honeyed almond-stuffed Dates and cooked garbanzo beans
around the edge.

They were certainly popular with the populace - none remained at the
end of the evening -folks went out between courses to graze off the
leftovers. I could barely eat one. They are way too sweet for me.
Heck, dates are way too sweet for me, although i can get a couple
down. But i don't want to recreate too much of the Iron Chef feast,
so i'm looking for other suggestions.

As for baqlawa, there are recipes in Medieval Arabic cookbooks that
call for layering *something* that is made with wheat flour - exactly
what is not quite clear (is it phyllo-like? pancake-like?
bread-like?) - with chopped nuts and honey and rosewater. Some are
called Qata'if, which is rather different than modern qati'if (which
is shredded wheat-like). In any event, the finished product at the
very *least* resembles baqlawa, and if the flat wheat flour product
is close to Moroccan warqa, it will also be close to phyllo, and much
closer to baqlawa...

I wrote:
>  > I'm also trying to find some
>  > interesting ways to serve fruit - since California is a major
>  > producer of fruit, we get quite a variety of good stuff... But i
>  > don't find many references to raw or only slightly cooked fruit.

Stefan li Rous responded:
>We did discuss whether raw vegetables and fruit were eaten in period,
>recently. If you didn't save those messages, perhaps some of the
>referances in this new file might be of use. They may not cover the
>cultures or the time you are interested in, but perhaps they'll help.

As i recall - and i will check the Florilegium - *Europeans* did not
often eat raw fruit. But remember, i am Near Eastern, and we do not
share the same fears as those barbaric Franji :-)

Something i read somewhere mentioned that Near Easterners did not
have a dessert course - they served their sweets right along with
their meats - but that they finished a meal with ripe fresh fruit. I
am trying to find more information about how it would be presented. I
know that there was a vast wealth of fruits available. Would they be
whole? peeled? cut up? sliced? piled into decoratively carved melons?
I find next to nothing in the otherwise wonderful "Medieval Arab
Cookery".

Anahita