[Sca-cooks] Sekanjabin Origins
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Wed Nov 17 09:08:10 PST 2004
Part One
This message came through one of my SCA Middle Eastern lists:
> ...The last couple of weeks has seen me putting an A&S entry together...
> My idea was to serve a dual purpose however. I have noticed a trend
> lately of how the heavy weapons guys frequently have a
> "mini-commissariat" at the List at events now. I thought I would do
> the same, but do one for the Fencers.
> ...and my plan was to enter it in the A&S Competition.
>
>This is where I ran into a problem. I have spent days looking for an
>original text. Hopefully you will know what I mean.
>
>I am looking for the "original text" (primary documentation), IN ARABIC,
>for Sekanjabin (aka Persian Mint Drink). It is in a book called Fihrist of
>al-Nadim, circa 10th c. If I recall correctly this is the first printed
>cookbook from the ME!. What I am looking for is either a scan of said
>recipe, a hard copy (photocopy) of same, or electronic text of some sort
>(Email, Word etc). My computer supports Arabic so that's not a problem. :)
Does anyone have access to an original SCA-period Arabic (or Persian)
recipe for Sekanjabin?
-----
Part Two
Someone answered the above message by saying:
> A slight correction - Sekanjabin does not mean Mint. It means a
> sugar/vinegar syrup. It may be flavored with mint, or cardamom, or ginger,
> or strawberry, or anything else. It is sometimes mixed with water to drink,
> sometimes milk, and sometimes left alone as a salad dip/dressing.
> I got my recipes from doing a search on the word sekanjabin on Google.
> After seeing that all the recipes were variations fo the same technique, I
> branched out on my own. I have no idea where you'd get a copy of an
> original recipe. Ask Cariadoc is all I can think of.
To the best of my knowledge, the basic sweet (originally honey) and
vinegar mixture used diluted with water as a beverage is called
oxymel (from the Greek for vinegar and honey) and was known to the
ancient Greeks and Romans (who also called it oxymel since they used
a lot of Greek food terms).
From what i can tell, many, if not most, of other flavored recipes
are SCAisms. While sekanjabin is a kind of oxymel, not all oxymels
are sekanjabin.
And, uh, i've never heard of mixing an oxymel with milk - i'd think
that would curdle the milk. Or am i wrong?
Anahita
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