[Sca-cooks] Questions in prep for a spanish feast

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

Dear Cariadoc-- THANK YOU!

> >First of all, when a recipe in the Anonymous Andalusian calls for 'meat'
> >can I use beef instead of lamb or kid? Or was beef used extremely rarely?
>
> Checking the Andalusian (useful having it in machine readable form) I
> find four recipes that specify beef. I'm pretty sure I have also seen
> veal in period Islamic recipes. And it's clear from some recipes that
> "meat" could also mean chicken.

*nod* thanks (though I went back to Jewish dish of eggplant, it specifies
meat from a leg of lamb).
I did find one of the beef recipes and am going to use it if I can make it
work!

> >Third, I know people refer to a certain period islamic recipe as being a
> >sort of ancestor of baklava. Can anyone point me to this recipe? I know
> >it's in part of the 100s of pages I've been searching through and probably
> >in the Florilegium but I'm getting overwhelmed.
>
> Two recipes occur to me that might be described that way. One is
> Khuskhananaj. But although the way I most often makes it results in
> lots of thin layers of pastry alternating with nuts and sugar, the
> original recipe doesn't specify that. The other is Musamanna--the
> leafy dish. It does end up with lots of thin layers and soaked in
> honey and butter.
> You can find recipes for both in the Miscellany, webbed on my site.

Thank you, thank you thank you!

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
 "in verbis et in herbis, et in lapidibus sunt virtutes"
(In words, and in plants, and in stones, there is power.)