[Sca-cooks] Persian, anyone?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

From: "Jim and Andi" <icbhod at home.com>
>Does anyone here specialize in late period Persian and/or Central Asian
>food? I'm about tearing my hair out with a part of a feast I'm trying to
>plan for Black Gryphon which is in 3 WEEKS!
>
>Madhavi Bai
>House Herava
>Glaedenfeld, Meridies

Well, the book "Medieval Arab Cookery" has the complete cookbook by
al-Baghdadi which has quite a few recipes of Persian origin. The
clues to their sources, since i don't speak Farsi, are in the essays
by Charles Perry in "MAC".

You probably aren't going to find it in three weeks, but you could
try your library system. You never know. If you intend to make more
historically accurate food from the Muslim world, i highly recommend
you get this book - it isn't cheap, but it's a treasure. It has quite
a few complete or nearly complete cookbooks as well as very
informative essays on Medieval Arabic cooking and its influence on
European food.

Al-Baghdadi's cookbook is also reproduced in His Grace, Duke
Cariadoc's collection of Medieval and Renaissance cookbooks, but
without the clues as to which recipes are Persian. Cariadoc's
collection is a real bargain, since it contains copies of about 2
dozen cookbooks. They are mostly European, but there are 3 or 4
cookbooks in the collection that were originally in Arabic. You can
ask His Grace if he can send them to you in time... He's on this list.

As for Central Asian, the only source i know for "SCA period" food is
A Soup for the Qan, which is a Mongolian-Chinese cookbook and health
manual from the time of Kublai Khan. This book sadly is insanely
expensive, but i got it through Inter-Library Loan. Took a while
though...

His Grace also has quite a collection of recipes on his website,
including the 13th century Anonymous Andalusian cookbook - but that's
pretty far away from Central Asia. He also has a small number of
recipes from a slightly out of period Indian cookbook. For access to
the various works on his site:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Medieval.html

I have a small selection of Medieval Persian recipes that i cooked
for The Principality of the Mists Fall Investiture last year on my
website. If you choose to use any of my recipes, i would appreciate
acknowledgement at the feast that i am the source.
http://witch.drak.net/lilinah

al-Sayyida Anahita al-Qurtubiyya bint 'abd al-Karim al-Fassi
AoA, West Kingdom Order of the Rose Leaf, Principality of the Mists
Corolla Aulica