[Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern Food

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

> Greetings,
> 
> I'm teaching a class on "Middle Eastern" food in about a month at our 
> Kingdom A&S Tourney. It's a history and survey. I will discuss 
> briefly the history of spices. I also want to cover some of the 
> basics of historic Near and Middle Eastern food.
> 
> What individual ingredients do you think of when someone says "Middle 
> Eastern"? What dishes?

My modern impressions:

Chick peas. Eggplant. Tabouli. Olives. Olive oil. Flatbreads. Fava beans. 
Feta cheese. Lots of garlic. Moroccan things like tagine and couscous. 
More olives. Lentils. Falafel. Hummus. Baba ganouj. Kofti. Dolmades. 
Baklava. Sweet hot tea. Lamb chunks on a stick. Saffron.

> 
> What else would people want to know about historical Middle Eastern food?

If Margaret (1203) were to go on Crusade, what would she be likely to have 
encountered? How much of later medieval European cuisine comes from ME 
sources?
> 
> Thanks for any input - this will help guide my research.
> 
> Anahita

You're welcome. Always happy to procrastinate real work to further the 
cause of scholarship. :-)

Margaret