[Sca-cooks] Stuffed grape leaves

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 16:31:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Samrah <auntie_samrah at yahoo.com>

>...yesterday night I set out on what I thought would be a bit of 
>easy research.  I am going to write a brief article for our shire 
>newsletter with my recipe for dolmas.  Sooo, trying to set a good 
>example, remembering that these are not a redaction, I thought I 
>would do a bit of very tertiary research to back it up, at least for 
>educational purposes.
>
>Alas alack!  After spending more than a few hours reviewing Medieval 
>Arab Cookery (thank you dear Huette), and briefly reviewing 
>Cariadoc's Miscellany & Stephen's Florilegium, I can't seem to find 
>any stuffed grape leaves, dolmas, dolmatas, vine leaves or anything. 
>The best I can seemingly find is a reference that the Turks moved to 
>someplace else (place forgotten) and the folks there made stuffed 
>cabbage leaves instead.

My recollection is there is mention in some Reliable Source (tm) of 
*fig* leaves used to wrap food, not vine, probably in Andrew Dalby. I 
would guess very young fig leaves - like, in spring. They do get huge 
- there are producing fig trees here in NoCal.

>I think it may have been a post by Anahita who is now blissfully 
>enjoying Pensic--oomashallah (Translation for non-arab personnas: 
>God would hope:  particularly in light of the storm/hurricane 
>Charlie!)

Alas, in my five years in the SCA, i have yet to make it from 
Northern California to Western Pennsylvania in August...

Next year at Pennsic, inshallah (trans. "God willing").

>  Anybody home out there have any inkling about dolmas in period?

So far, no evidence. The recipes for the Byzantine feast with dolmas 
on godecookery.com is all cringingly modern Greek food. I mean, 
modern Greek food is fine, but it is not SCA period Byzantine food.

I would suggest looking into Andrew Dalby's books on ancient Greek 
and Roman food and his new book on Byzantine food, which i don't have 
yet. Alas, my "disposable" income has been going into my teeth and my 
car. I've bought two book this year i think. I am in pain. I am a 
biblioholic and i don't want to recover :-)

Siren Feasts : A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece, 1996 (have)
Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World, 2002 (have)
Flavours of Byzantium, 2003 (don't have yet)

Dalby also wrote:
The Classical Cookbook, with Sally Grainger (who is preparing a new 
edition of the Apician cookbook) - 1996 (have)
Dangerous Tastes: the Story of Spices, 2000 (have - great fun!)
Food in the Ancient World: An A-Z, 2002 (haven't seen this ($89!!))

Good luck, and be sure to report back to us.

Anahita