[Sca-cooks] Period Baklava

[Sandragood at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/4/2007 12:05:42 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
sca-cooks-request at lists.ansteorra.org writes:

Now,  does anyone have a source for this isifunj Anne-Marie speaks  of?




I don't have a reference for isifunj, but in the Medieval Arab Cookery Book  
there is a reference to Lauzinaj.  There are several variations of this  dish. 
 It is not exactly like baklava, but one could interpret the version  below 
into something similar.
 
Here's how it reads.
 
Take a pound of finely ground sugar.  Take a third of a pound of  peeled 
almonds, and grind them fine also, and mix them with the sugar and knead  with 
rose-water.  Take some thin bread, like sanbusaj bread, the thinner  the better; 
the most suitable is kunafa bread.  Spread out a sheet of that  bread and put 
the kneaded almonds and sugar on it.  Then roll it up like a  belt, cut it in 
pieces and arrange them on a vessel.  Refine [viz. by  frying with spices] as 
much fresh sesame oil as needed, and put it on  them.  Then cover them with 
syrup to which you have added rose-water, and  sprinkle them with sugar and 
pistachios, both pounded fine.  And if the  pistachios are fried and thrown in the 
syrup, it is a marvel.
 
Most modern references list this dish as marzipan,  stuffed or wrapped in a 
"tube" of thin pastry.
 
Depending on how you interpret the "rolling up like a belt and cut in  
pieces" could alter the appearance of the final dish.  One could easily  visualize a 
"thin sheet of bread" spread out before you as you spread the almond  sugar 
mixture over it.  You could then roll it up like one would a belt  much like 
the jellyroll fashion then cut.  This would then give you many  layers to the 
end product.
 
THL Elizabeth



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