[Sca-cooks] OOP Frying Question

[Lilinah]

Someone wrote:
>  I keep seeing something that looks like funnel cakes
>in the Indian markets in the neighborhood, that must have been poured
>through an opening the thickness of a pencil, or less. I haven't tried
>them, but they look cool.

And Ranvaig replied:
>  I can think of two things this could be:
>
>  Sev a dry crispy snack of chickpea flour, sometimes served on top 
>of Bhel puri.

Let me note that sev are savory, not sweet. They are quite opaque.

>Or Jalebi, which are rather like small funnel cakes that are fried 
>then dipped into syrup. They are bright orange and intensely sweet, 
>and taste rather less interesting than they look, IMO.

Well, perhaps soaked in syrup would be more appropriate description 
:-) They're rather translucent, compared to sev, and they're not made 
with chickpea flour.

They are quite popular throughout the Arabic speaking world from 
Morocco at least to Syria and Lebanon - i don't own a modern Iraqi 
cookbook, but i'd lay odds that they're eaten in Iraq, too. And, of 
course, as Ranvaig makes clear, all the way to South Asia.

>I think I saw Jalebi in Nimatnama.  They might be period (at least 
>the name if not the modern recipe).  I only have a scanned copy, but 
>will try to look for it.

They are indeed period, although they often have a more "complicated" 
name, jalabiyya. They appear in many of the surviving SCA-period 
Arabic-language cookbooks.

>I found this on the web, but no citation
>"Jalebi originated in Arabia, where it was called Zalabia. It was 
>brought to India during Moghul Empire."
>http://www.indiacurry.com/desserts/ds008jalebi.htm

There's no way to know if they originated in Arabia, since we have no 
Arabican cookbooks, and not much information on Arabian food.

However, they are in many Arabic language cookbooks, bearing in mind 
that dishes in these cookbooks come from many different cultures 
(including Byzantine), but were somewhat standardized in the Abbasid 
dynasty (Arabic, but not Arabian).
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

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