[Sca-cooks] Persian, anyone?

[Jim and Andi]

Yay!! Anahita!! I did not realize you belonged to that wonderful Persian
recipes page, I've visited it often!

I am cooking one of 4 courses for a ME collegium. The theme is "The Far
Reaches of Islam" and one course is Baghdad, one is Turkish, Izmir I think,
the appetizers are from all over and mine is Samarkand. Both of the other
courses are using the Al-Baghdadi book you mentioned. I chose 1510 Samarkand
because Ferghanid Persia and late period Central Asia and NW India have
become my area of EXTREME, ummm...  focus, passion, obsession, whatever you
want to call it, over the last few years.

My resources are the Wheeler Thackston translation of the Babur-nama
(primary), the Beveridge translation of the Humayun-nama (primary), "Moghul
Cooking" by Joyce Westrip (secondary, an actual cookbook, she quotes and
mostly works from solid period and OOP primary sources) and "Food and Drinks
in Mughal India" by Dr. Satya Prakash Sangar which is the absolute most
torturous book on cooking you will ever read but it is CHOCK-FULL of primary
data.

So basically I have 3 books with descriptions of dishes but no recipes which
are 100% period and useable, and one book of recipes which is imminently
more useful but not necessarily period. And I keep testing recipes and
people say "it's good, go with it" when what I am looking for is
falling-out-of-chair-orgasms. Very frustrating. My problem is this: this
feast has to ROCK. No messing around. I just did a 5-course Magyar and
Polish feast which went over extremely well, even though 3 out of 5 people
told me that Eastern European was too "weird." (Remember, I'm in central
Meridies!!) Very few people around here will chance a ME feast, and
Samarkand is even farther out in the weird food category. Very few people
have ever heard of Samarkand, much less know what their food is like, MUCH
LESS know what their medieval food was like. My Laurel, wise woman she is,
put me last so people wouldn't have to face the weirdness on an empty
stomach at least. See, I would eventually like to do an entire Ferghanid
Persian feast, and if people have bad memories of this, then they won't show
up for an entire feast from the same region from the same feastcrat. People
around here will get up and walk out on a bad feast, I've seen it!!

Whew! I feel better. Am I crazy for being so nuts about this?

Madhavi