[Sca-cooks] Substitutions... how do we know?

Lilinah lilinah at earthlink.net
Fri May 30 10:34:45 PDT 2008


And here it is!!!
The Solution!!!

The complete recipe:

XVII. Affare Romania

Affare romania suffrigi li pulli con lardo et con cipolle et trita le 
agmandole non mondate et destempera collu suco del pomo granato acre 
et dolce ben forte colando, et mictice poca de acqua de zuccaro et 
spezie, et fa bollire poco colli dicti pulli, et mesteca con 
cucchiaro de ligno et mictice spezie desopra.  Se tu non ai 
agmandole, mictice ruscio de ova.  Se tu non agi mela granate, fa 
brodo verde con herbe.

17. To make Romania
[Romania comes from Arabic Rummaniyya = Pomegrante-y]

To make Romania fry the chicken with lard and with onions, and chop 
unpeeled almonds and temper them with sour and sweet pomegranate 
juice and strain them well, and mix a little water with sugar and 
spices, and put this to boil for a little with the said chicken, and 
mix well with a wooden spoon and put mixed spices above [on it].  If 
you do not have almonds add egg yolks. If you do not have 
pomegranate, use broth green with herbs.
trans. by Helewyse
http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/birdfruit.html

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Here are the specified substitutions:

-- If you don't have almonds *add egg yolks.*
-- If you don't have pomegranate, *use a broth that is green with herbs.*

My thoughts:

1.) Almonds: Given that egg yolks are the substitute for almonds, i 
think in this case one is not making almond milk, but rather the 
ground almonds go into the dish. I note, speaking off the top of my 
head, that i've also seen some recipes use mashed/sieved hard-cooked 
egg yolks as a thickener, but i can't guarantee they were Italian or 
Arabic.

2.) Pomegranate: Given that the key flavor in the original Arabic 
recipe is pomegranate, which gives the dish its name, i find it odd 
that green herb broth is a substitute - it has neither the flavor nor 
the color of the original. But it is an adaption by an "alien" 
culture, so lacking an understanding of the source of the word 
"romania", then they'd make their own substitutions.

In the end, comparing our own guesses with the Italian recipe, and 
then with the several Arabic-language recipes, we see that most of us 
would not make the same substitutions as the Italians, and the 
Italians wouldn't make the same substitutions as Arabic-speakers.

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The source of the particular recipe is:
The Anonimo Meridionale/Anonymous Southerner
late 14th C. Italian

This manuscript is composed of two books, called A and B, both of 
which include recipes of Arabic origin.

This recipe is from A

Unfortunately, the entire manuscript has not been translated into 
English. There are two recipes in Barbara Santich, a few here and 
there on the web, and the one i gave.

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A number of Arabic recipes made it into the Medieval Italian corpus 
(granted not a unified body, with all the principalities, duchies, 
city-states, etc.). Besides Romania/Rummaniyya, there is also 
Limonia/Laymuniyya, and Sumachia/Summaqiyya. There are a number of 
recipes for meat cooked with fruit and spices that appear to me to 
show Arabic influence, such as Ambrogio, but i can't guarantee it.

For example, there's also a recipe for Limonia in the Anonimo 
Meridionale, and recipes for Romania, Limonnia and Summachia in the 
anonymous Tuscan cookbook.

Here's the Romania recipe from the Tuscan:

Romania - Pomegranate Chicken
[100] Fry the chickens with salted pork fat and onions, and grind 
unpeeled almonds in a mortar, and dilute it with strong or sweet 
pomegranate juice: press and strain them well, and put it with the 
chicken, and boil it a little, and stir it with a spoon, or beat it, 
and add spices.  And if you do not have pomegranate, you can make 
this with herb broth.

I suspect that the Arabic speaking cooks would not have use a broth 
green with herbs to replace pomegranate in a dish named 
"Pomegranate-y". Without pomegranate, it just isn't Rummaniyya.

There's an excellent essay about the influences of Arabic recipes on 
Italian cuisine by Maxime Rodinson, "Romania and other Arabic words 
in Italian", in _Medieval Arabic Cookery_, in which he reproduces a 
number of Arabic and Italian recipes.

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Who guessed right:

* If you don't have almonds...
-- Old Mirian and Jadwiga on AuthenticCooks, and Suey on SCA-Cooks 
got the eggs.
-- Nicola on SCA-Cooks mentioned eggs, but thought that the 
almond-pomegranate blend was a separate sauce, and not cooked, so 
decided it wouldn't be eggs.

* If you don't have pomegranate...
-- Jadwiga on SCA-Cooks guessed "sorrel juice or other juices of green plants"

My thanks to all the brave souls who made their reasoned and educated guesses.

-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

My LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah



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