[Sca-cooks] Seljuk/Rumi/Sufi Cuisine
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Sun Apr 25 12:58:08 PDT 2010
So, after some discussion of book on this list,
out of curiosity i bought Nevin Halici's "Sufi
Cuisine", recreations of food mentioned in the
Seljuk period writings of Rumi.
Many of the recipes are plausible... based on
what i know of 15th c. Ottoman Turkish cuisine.
But i wouldn't guarantee they are plausible for
the earlier cuisine of the Seljuk Turks, who had
the Suljuk Empire, then the smaller Seljuk
Sultante of Rum (pronounced room), between 1028
to 1307.
She also makes a few outrageous claims, such as
noting that certain foods were found in the
excavations of the neolithic city Catal Hoyuk
(Çatal Höyük) then asserting that her recreation
of a Seljuk dish of bulgur would be exactly the
same as what was eaten in 7400 BCE in Catal
Hoyuk. Huh?
(sarcasm on) She also includes such 13th century
Anatolian favorites as butternut squash and
zucchini, both New World in origin. (sarcasm off)
And yet she is careful to exclude other New World
plants, such as tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers,
and chilis from her recipes.
Now a question: she also has a recipe for a dish
whose central ingredient is modern,
thick-stalked, crunchy celery. Now celery likely
originated in the Mediterranean, so it is Old
World. But I recall discussions that what we know
today wasn't historically accurate for ancient
Roman cuisine. And i have also read that the kind
of celery we mostly use was not developed until
the 17th century. So it seems that something like
modern celery would not have been around by the
13th c. Am i mistaken?
--
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita
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