[Sca-cooks] bread recipe in Fadalat al-Jiwan fi Tayyibat al-t'aam wa-l-alwan

[Lilinah]

Stefan wrote:
>  Urtatim mentioned:
>  > I wonder if it might be from Fadalat al-Jiwan fi
>  > Tayyibat al-t'aam wa-l-alwan (Highlights of the
>  > table, on dishes and stews) by Abu l-Hasan 'Ali
>  > ibn Muhammad ibn Abi l-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi
>  > Bakr ibn al-Andalusi Razin al-Tuyibi, and
>  > Andalusi from Murcia, between 1228 and 1243.
SNIP
>  > It even includes a bread recipe and a couscous recipe. >>>
>
>  So which one is the bread recipe?

I've run all the recipes on that page through 
Babelfish, and now i'm correcting its errors. For 
example, every time a recipe says, "cortas" 
meaning "cut", it gets translated as "short". And 
Babelfish doesn't know the words for ginger 
(jengibre), cumin (comino), or spikenard 
(espicanardi).

But otherwise it's not that hard... except there 
are a few cooking terms i'm not sure of...

Anyway, here's the bread recipe. First the 
translation from the Arabic into modern Spanish, 
then the Babelfished version with some smoothing 
by me - i welcome any assistance from listees who 
actually know Spanish to improve the translation.

Pan cocido en el horno
  Se toma la sémola, se remoja, se le echa sal, se 
deja ablandar y se soba bien sobada. Se añade la 
levadura y se va amasando con agua, poco a poco, 
hasta que la masa queda a punto y aparece 
trabada. Se le pone un poco de harina fina, se 
reboza con ella y se hacen tortas conforme se 
deseen, que se colocan en el doblez de un trozo 
de lino o de lana, que se recubre con pieles de 
cordero o cosa parecida, y se dejan que se 
leuden. La señal de que están leudas es que se 
levanta la masa y que al golpearla deja oir un 
ruido. En seguida se cuecen con cuidado en el 
horno. Una vez cocidas, se limpian, se ponen en 
una vasija y se comen cuando haya necesidad. Si 
se emplea harina de flor o de cualquier otra 
clase no hay necesidad de remojarla, sino ponerle 
desde el principio la levadura y amasar en 
seguida. En uno y otro caso se empleará el agua 
bastante caliente.

Bread cooked in the oven
Take semolina, soak it, put some salt in it, let 
it soften/tenderize, and soba it very sobada. Add 
leavening and knead it with water, little by 
little, until the dough feels just right and 
appears smooth. Put a little fine flour onto it, 
coat it with the flour and make cakes in the 
desired form, place them in a doubled piece of 
linen or woolen cloth, cover again with lamb skin 
or similar thing, and leave them to rise. The 
sign that they are risen is that the mass rises 
and that when striking it lets it out a noise. 
Next cook them with care of in the furnace. Once 
cooked, clean them, put them in a vessel and eat 
them when it is necessary. If using flour of fine 
quality or of any other class there is no 
necessity to soak it, but from the beginning put 
the leavening in it and knead it immediately. In 
one or the other case use water that is quite hot.

NOTES:
Babelfish could never translate "vasija" - is 
this a special shaped container or just a 
"vessel"?
OK, i found a translation of "sobar" (to fondle, 
to paw, to grope), but it doesn't make a lot of 
sense in this context.

OK, some elusive ingredients in other recipes:
almáciga (Bablefish said "seedbed" and an on-line 
dictionary said it was a plant nursery) but it 
appears in a list with cinnamon, pepper and 
ginger - is it mace?
alones - what part of a chicken is this?
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita