[Sca-cooks] Curious Quick Request...

Terry Decker t.d.decker at att.net
Thu Nov 13 14:46:02 PST 2008


Middle East? Commonly, the areas that form the Middle East are Iran, Iraq, 
Caucus, Turkey, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Libya, and 
Tunisia.  The Byzantine Empire falls within the Middle East.  Between 300 CE 
and 651 CE much of the Middle East was divided between Byzantium and the 
Parthians.

According to George Rawlinson in The Story of Parthia (1893), the Parthians 
ate pork.

Bear


> Define Middle East, I suppose.
> This e-notes article on Byzantine Empire Food by Andrew Dalby
> http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/byzantine-empire
> mentions "/Timarion,/ a satirical poem of the twelfth century, suggests 
> salt pork and cabbage stew as being a typical poor man's meal, eaten from 
> the bowl with the fingers just as it would have been in  contemporary 
> western Europe."
>
> The place to look for the Byzantine connections would be
> Dalby, Andrew. /Flavours of Byzantium/. Totnes, Devon, U.K.: Prospect 
> Books, 2003.
>
> Johnnae
>
> Terry Decker wrote:
>> Islam isn't a force in the Middle East until around 650, byt which time 
>> it held the Arabioan Peninsula.  By 700, it was a significant force in 
>> North Africa and moving east into the rest of the Middle East.  While the 
>> Jews had dietary restrictions, did the pre-Islamic Arabs have the same? 
>> One also need remember that most of this was part of the Eastern Roman 
>> Empire at the time, so a Roman recipe for pork might not be out of order. 
>> Even after 700, the Byzantine controlled areas would probably have pork.
>>
>> Bear



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