[Sca-cooks] Sekanjabin Origins
Stephen Bloch
sbloch at adelphi.edu
Thu Nov 18 12:40:16 PST 2004
Maire wrote:
>>There's a whole darned chapter of the Anon. Andalusian with some
>>very odd flavorings for sekanjabin or oxymel (like carrot), so it's
>>not really an SCAism, although specific occurences might be.
>>I can't, personally, imagine wanting to put any of the varieties in
>>milk <<huge shudder>>, or use as a dip--wrong flavors!
I believe I translated that chapter, which does indeed have lots of
drink syrups, some involving numerous obscure herbs and spices. I
never thought of them as "flavorings" for sekanjabin, but rather as
conceptual siblings of sekanjabin; one wouldn't have been surprised
to see sekanjabin appear as one of the dozens of entries.
David replied:
>Except that the chapter doesn't identify the other drinks as
>"sekanjabin." And many of the drinks don't have vinegar, and so are
>not oxymels either. I think an old discussion on this list concluded
>that "jalab" was the proper generic term for such drinnks, but I'm
>not sure.
I've seen the word "jalab" used, by modern Middle Eastern grocers, to
a particular drink syrup flavored with rosewater, but it's quite
possible that it has or had a broader meaning of "drink syrup" in
general. Charles Perry would be the person to ask....
Side note: A parenthetical remark in the Anon. Andalusian refers to
some particular recipe (which had nothing to do with drink syrups) as
"the sekanjabin of the kitchen". I never figured out why.
Another side note: IIRC, just after the chapter of drink syrups is an
equally-long chapter of "pastes" -- some sweetened, some not, most
involving obscure herbs and spices, with medical commentary. Has
anybody ever tried any of these?
--
John Elys
(the artist formerly known as mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib)
mka Stephen Bloch
sbloch at adelphi.edu
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