[Sca-cooks] Fwd: FW: Mongol foodways

Elaine Koogler ekoogler1 at comcast.net
Tue Jul 4 17:29:12 PDT 2006


lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
> Phlip wrote:
>   
>> OK, folks,  Paul just checked with Mary Isin, whom he considers
>> to be THE definitive expert on the topic. Perry's al-Baghdadi was
>> a translation of the original recipes - these recipes are, in fact
>> additional to the basic al-Baghdadi by Sirvani, so the recipes are
>> in fact period, and different, from those in Perry's translation of
>> al-Baghdadi.
>>     
>
> Well, that's what i've been saying and writing about since i got the 
> book, "A la table du Grand Turc", on April 11 of this year. My first 
> posting about it to this list was on April 12.
>
> Perhaps if you'd passed along my messages to Paul he'd have 
> understood clearly what i was saying.
>
> I mentioned that these 15th c. Ottoman recipes were written down by 
> Chirvani - the French spelling of Shirvani (the Turkish has a cedilla 
> under the initial "S", meaning that "S" is pronounced like "Sh" in 
> English).
>
> And i mentioned that Chirvani added them to his translation into 
> Turkish of al-Baghdadi.
>
> And i mentioned the modern author and translator, Stefane Yerasimos, 
> a university professor in France, originally from Istanbul, who 
> translated this selection of the 15th century Ottoman recipes into 
> modern languages, including French. A scholar who wrote quite a few 
> books on Ottoman culture, apparently he died recently, so i can't 
> correspond with him.
>
> And i noted that Yersimos said that there are 82 recipes added by 
> Chirvani, a dozen more than the "around seventy recipes" Mary Isin 
> mentioned. In fact, it is likely she got her information from 
> Yerasimos, directly or indirectly.
>
> In his introductory matter - of which i have now translated into hard 
> copy over half (having skimmed it once, then carefully read through 
> it twice) - Yerasimos also discusses the recipes and food related 
> information in a number of early 15 C. medical books, mentioning the 
> medical texts by title - alas i don't read Medieval Ottoman Turkish. 
> I didn't mention this before.
>
>   
>>  So, hopefully, the confusion is solved- sorry about that ;-)
>>     
>
> I am glad to hear you are no longer confused. I certainly wasn't, nor 
> were several people i have corresponded with off-list about this.
>
> As i said, these are the earliest surviving Ottoman Turkish recipes 
> known. And i'm translating Yerasimos's work so i can make this 
> information available to SCAdians - not just the recipes, but the 
> informative scholarly and explanatory essays. Since i am translating 
> Yerasimos's work, i suspect i cannot just translate it and make it 
> readily available, since his translations and essays are, i am sure, 
> protected by copyright, even in translation.
>
> Yerasimos compared these 15th c. recipe with those in a cookbook from 
> the late 18th century and others from the 19th. However, contrary to 
> the beliefs of some SCAdians who have taught classes at SCA events 
> saying that Middle Eastern food hadn't changed over the centuries 
> (hah!), by the 18th century Ottoman cuisine is already quite 
> different from that of the 15th C. This can be seen because there are 
> some recipes with the same names and the same primary ingredients, 
> but are clearly very different from the 15th c. versions. Generally 
> the more recent recipes use far fewer ingredients and much simplified 
> techniques. Further, there are many recipes that seem to have passed 
> out of Ottoman cuisine altogether.
>
> I will be teaching a class about this work at our West Kingdom Arts 
> and Sciences Tourney near the end of this month. My intention is to 
> talk about Chirvani's work, and Yerasimos's comparisons with 
> information in surviving Ottoman records, menus from the Topkapi, and 
> Ottoman medical books. And we will cook a small meal of 4 dishes 
> using these recipes.
>   
Dear Lady,
I so wish I could be there.  However, it is impossible.  So.........is 
there a chance you could share your notes for the class, along with the 
recipes?  I am cooking a feast next February that will be for a Middle 
Eastern event and I'm looking to expand the horizons for the feast...

Thanks!

Kiri



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