[Sca-cooks] Sultan's Book of Delights-- late 15th century

[Johnna Holloway]

Here's a new one from Routledge.

Johnnae llyn Lewis


The NI'Matnama Manuscript of the Sultans of Mandu: The Sultan's Book of
Delights


# 576 pages (February 2005)
# Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon
# ISBN: 041535059X

115 US dollars

Routledge says:

The Ni'matnama is a late fifteenth-century book of recipes written for
the Sultan of Mandu, in what is now Madhya Pradesh, India. It contains
recipes for cooking a variety of delicacies and epicurean delights, as
well as providing remedies and aphrodisiacs for Nasir ad-Din Shah of
Mandu and his court. The text provides a unique account of courtly life
in a fifteenth century Indian Sultanate and documents a fascinating
stage in the history of Indian cookery.

There is only one copy of The Sultan's Book of Delights in existence,
held in the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library
(BL-Persian 149). The book manuscript is illustrated with fifty elegant
miniature paintings, most of which show showing the Sultan observing the
women of his court as they prepare and serve him various dishes. These
illustrations are important historical art documents in their own right.
Painted in a distinctive Shirazi (Southern Iranian) style, they are also
stylistically influenced by indigenous styles of book painting found in
Central and Western India, and are the earliest known example of
miniature painting in an Islamic Deccani style.

For the first time, a facsimile of the original text is reproduced for a
scholarly audience. Norah Titley, formerly assistant keeper, Oriental
Collections at the British Library, has masterfully translated this
unique book.


Contents:
1. Preface 2. Introduction 3. List and description of the manuscript's
illustrations 4. Facsimile of the manuscript including colour inserts
for illustrations 5. Translation of the manuscript 6. Bibliography 7.
Glossary 8. Index