[Sca-cooks] Period substitute for tomatoes?

[Judith Epstein]

On Aug 22, 2009, at 1:35 AM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> IIRC, Judith, you said you were Mizrachi. So i'd think you'd be  
> interested in the Arabic language cookbooks, from the 10th through  
> 15th centuries.

Heavens yes, I'm interested in those! But I don't read Arabic. I'm  
Mizrachi by Jewish tradition, not by being born in Iraq or Yemen.

> Many of the recipes are not difficult, it's a question of your  
> personal style of cooking - do you feel comfortable winging it from  
> an outline, or do you prefer all the detailed quantities of  
> ingredients written down.

If I'm cooking a food I've eaten before, I just wing it and generally  
get in the neighborhood of what the taste is. If I'm cooking something  
I've never had, or have had but YEARS ago, I'll need a recipe -- which  
I'll follow once, then mutate it to my own preferences.

> What would probably be helpful is to get a hold of a book, spend  
> time reading it to find recipes that appeal to you and suit your  
> level of kashrut. Then experiment with cooking them on weeks without  
> SCA events, taking notes, until you come up with recipes you know  
> how to make easily for Shabbat.

There's not really such a thing as a level of kashrut. 99% kosher =  
100% non-kosher. I keep kosher.

> Many dishes in the Arabic language corpus are meant to be eaten cold  
> - these are often identified as Bawarid (pl), Barid (sing). For two  
> very tasty cold chicken salads:
> http://home.earthlink.net/~al-tabbakhah/Misc_ME_Food/barida.html

These look VERY good, thank you, and so do the recipes from the other  
links. I guess I've got a new hobby now, sorting out what I've had  
before and can reproduce, and what I haven't had and will need to obey  
someone else's idea of what's right. ;) Yay, food hobbies! Thank you,  
Anahita/Urtatim.

Judith / no SCA name yet