[Sca-cooks] The Priest Fainted

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>Also sprach tracey sawyer:
>  >I'm trying to find documentation for a "traditional" middle eastern
>  >eggplant (aubergine) recipe. The name translates as "the priest
>  >fainted" the arabic name starts with Imam- but I can't remember the
>  >rest.
>  >
>  >It is supposed to be a really tasty aubergine and garlic pate style
>  >dish, usually served in the shell. The cook book says traditional
>  >but doesn't say whether it is 12th century tradition or 19th century
>  >tradition...
>  >
>  >This is for a "Crusader" style feast to be held in August ... that
>  >is spring in Lochac.
>
>That would probably be imam bayaldi or bayildi. I've never heard it
>described as a pate (more a stuffed eggplant dish; when is it _not_
>served in the shell?). The legend says that either a) the imam in
>question fainted because the dish was so exquisite, or b) the imam
>fainted because of the cost of the oil required to prepare it. Either
>way, it's a good dish (for all that it is made with eggplant).

Many stuffed vegetables appear in the late Ottoman corpus and
eventually made their way to places like Lebanon, where much of the
traditional cooking these days reflects Ottoman influence. As far as
i can tell from my research so far, they didn't really take to
Ottoman clothing or food until around 100 or 150 years ago.

Unfortunately, the word "traditional" doesn't mean much. It could
mean "two generations old" (i.e., my granny cooked it this way, so it
must be old"), although i'm pretty certain imam bayildi is 19th c.

Anahita