[Sca-cooks] Food Poem

[Cindy M. Renfrow]

>Greetings all,
>
>  I am looking for an arabic poem on food from Charles Perry's
>"A Baghdad Cookery Book."  According to a message in Stefan's
>floriligeum the specific poem is on page 22 of that book.  (I
>love google).  I have lost my photocopy of that poem, just as I
>was finally getting ready to try to make the tray described.
>
>(from memory)
>Accept I beg this tray of wicker made
<snip>

[page 21]
"Accept, I beg, this tray of wicker made
With serried cups symmetrically laid;
Whate'er yon red and yellow bowls contain
The man of taste will surely not disdain [page 22]
Here kamakh is of flowering tarragon,
Here capers grace a sauce vermilion
Whose fragrant odours to the soul are blown
Like powder'd musk in druggist's fingers strewn.
Here, too, sweet marjoram's delicious scent
With breath of choicest cloves is richly blent;
While cinnamon, of condiments the king,
Unblemished hue, unrivalled seasoning,
Like musk in subtle odour rises there,
Tempting the palate, sweetening the air.
Here crowns the bowl fresh-gathered savory,
Rival to musk and pitch in fragrancy;
Here pungent garlic greets the eager sight
And whets with savour sharp the appetite,
While olives turn to shadowed night the day,
And salted fish in slices rims the tray.
Behold thereon the onion's argent frame
Like silver body filled with inward flame;
There circles of horse-radish garnished are
With meat, and plend their tang with vinegar -
Meat that, in slices white and scarlet laid,
Like gold and silver coin is arrayed.