[Sca-cooks] Ibn Battula"s Meals

[Terry Decker]

I shouldn't try to follow a thread when I'm tired.

The area you are describing is in the grain growing region of Southeast 
Europe.  While they might or might not have had durum, they would have had 
wheat and I would generally assume that any pasta would be made from some 
variety of wheat, except possibly in times of famine.  Neither buckwheat nor 
millet have gluten and any pasta made from them would likely be extremely 
friable.

The term macaroni derives from the Italian "maccaroni" meaning "dumpling." 
In the original usage, the word can be used to refer to almost any form of 
pasta.  IIRC, the first reference to tubular pasta shows up in early 15th 
Century Italy (check for references before taking that as gospel), but I 
don't remember that usage being outside of Italy.  In my view, tubular pasta 
is a remote possibility.  It is much more likely that the pasta would be 
flat noodles or dumplings.

Millet, BTW, makes a very decent polenta, either as a soft mush or a drier 
loaf.  I suspect that this was probably served as mush.

Bear


> Since durum was being grown in Dhufar (west coast of the Arabian 
> Peninsula), the Horn of Africa would have had easy access to it.
>
> My reply:
>
> Yes but we are talking about a meal served in Azov a city up the River 
> Don. Azov (Russian: ?????, pronounced [a'zof]) is a town in Rostov Oblast, 
> Russia, situated on the Don River just sixteen kilometers from the Sea of 
> Azov.  The River Don flows into the Sea of Azov from the north east.  The 
> Sea of Azov connects to the Black Sea on its north side.
>
> I suspect that "macaroni" is used by Dunn generically for pasta.  All that 
> being said the grain used in making the pasta could have been grown 
> locally? We know that millet was also served at the meal.   The "macaroni" 
> referenced could have been made from wheat, buckwheat or millet?  Macaroni 
> as we know it is in the form of tubular noodles.  Did tubular noodles 
> exist in Azov at the time?
>
> Daniel