[Sca-cooks] The Adventures of Ibn Battula

David Friedman ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Sun Oct 3 14:51:42 PDT 2010


>I'm rereading "The Adventures of Ibn Battula"  by Ross E. Dunn and 
>came across a description of a meal that might prove interesting. 
>Ibn Battula was a Muslim traveler in the 14th century who is often 
>referred to as "the Muslim Marco Polo".  Dunn uses an account of his 
>travels to recreate his itinerary.  The meal, served in Mogadishu, 
>is describes as follows:
>
>... the party addressed themselves to a meal of local fare, 
>compliments of the palace: a stew of chicken, meat, fish, and 
>vegetables poured over rice cooked in ghee: unripe bananas in fresh 
>milk: and a dish comprising of sour milk, green ginger, mangoes, and 
>pickled lemons and chilies.  The citizens of Mogadishu, Ibn Battula 
>observed, did justice to such meals as these: "A singe citizen... 
>eats as much as a whole company of us would eat, as a matter of 
>habit, and they are corpulent and fat in the extreme."
>
>I am puzzled at the inclusion of chilies in this description as I 
>understand them to have been introduced from the new world.  Perhaps 
>the translation from the original text is in error?
>
>Dan

The relevant passage is on page 376 of the Gibb translation of The 
Travels. It isn't entirely clear if Ibn Battuta is describing the 
food he was offered, or starting with that and then commenting on 
what the local people eat.

"and in another dish they put curdled milk, on which they place 
[pieces of] pickled lemon, bunches of pickled pepper steeped in 
vinegar and salted, green ginger, and mangoes. "

That's clearly the passage he is referring to, and it sounds as 
though Dunn has turned peppers into chilis. I haven't read his book, 
but Ibn Battuta's own account of his travels, in the Gibb 
translation, is a lot of fun. I like to describe Marco Polo as a 13th 
c. Italian imitator of the 14th c. North African world traveler Ibn 
Battuta.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com



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