[Sca-cooks] siting table in Middle-eastern style.
David Friedman
ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Fri Sep 11 07:57:42 PDT 2009
>. . . not what they ate, but how the meal was structured. How does
>one properly set and serve a meal in the Holy Land, in period?
>Anybody know of any references where I would start with to determine
>the structure of the Islamic meal?
The Anonymous Andalusian (13th c.) discusses the question of how a
feast is organized, but it's describing western Islamic practice
which pretty clearly differed at the time from Middle Eastern
practice due to some changes attributed to Ziryab, an influential
cultural figure in, I think, the ninth century.
"Many of the great figures and their companions order that the
separate dishes be placed on each table before the diners, one after
another; and by my life, this is more beautiful than putting an
uneaten mound all on the table, and it is more elegant, better-bred,
and modern; this has been the practice of the people of al-Andalus
and the West, of their rulers, great figures, and men of merit from
the days of 'Umar b. 'Abd al-'Aziz[55] and the Banu Umayya to the
present."
The discussion rejectes the old fashioned way of doing things, which
seems to involve serving everything at once, in favor of the cultured
modern way, which involves a sequence of courses--and it describes
what the sequence is. The book is webbed on my site; the relevant
part is:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian3.htm#Heading125
My interpretation of the old fashioned way, which I gather is still
the practice in the Middle East, is that you have a platter with a
pile of rice, and the various things all on it, presumably on
different parts of the pile. This makes serving much easier. It's how
Elizabeth and I did our Islamic feast at Thirty Year.
My guess, but it's only a guess, is that one way of doing it is to
use tray tables. The stands are in place, the trays are brought in,
each with its pile of rice (perhaps on a big plate), with (say) three
different main dishes, all served out on top of different parts of
the pile. That would explain the prominence of tray tables.
--
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com
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