[Sca-cooks] 15th C. Ottoman Bulghur w/Chestnuts

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> Fat - Sheep tail fat apparently figures in a lot of the actual 
> Ottoman recipes. But i'd like this dish to be edible by any 
> vegetarians who attend. Butter is an option, as it was frequently 
> used. Olive oil was NOT used in Palace cooking, just for oil lamps. 
> On the other hand, there are folks here with genuine health related 
> food issues - a need to reduce cholesterol intake. So i'm considering 
> oil - obviously not olive. I'm wondering if sunflower oil would be 
> too off-base to use. As far as i can tell, the Ottomans didn't use 
> it, but i won't use canola, since nearly all grown in the US is 
> genetically modified. Opinions?

Sunflower seeds are New World, I believe. So your genetically modified 
rapeseed oil (canola) and your sunflower oil are both equally 
non-period; at least the Ottomans had olive oil, so that may be a better 
bet.  On the other hand, how does untoasted  sesame oil rate in the 
current cholesterol diet? And does that show up in the Ottoman diet at 
all?


-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"I thought you might need rescuing . . . We have a bunch of professors 
wandering around who need students." -- Dan Guernsey