[Sca-cooks] Thoughts on Adam Gopnik's Sweet Revolution in the New Yorker - Blancmange

[Elaine Koogler]

I did find a recipe in *Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens *that really does
look like it might be a 10th c. antecedent to blancmanger.  The main recipe
calls for using meat, and water.  However, there is a variation, *
muhallabiyya*, that calls for chicken, rice and milk...all of which get
cooked together until they thicken.  It's missing the almonds, but
otherwise....

Kiri

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 10:15 AM, Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com> wrote:

>  But to stick to deserts, Europe was exposed to Ottoman playing
>> with sweet-savory combinations as far back as the 14th century when it
>> became enchanted with tavuk g?g?s (chicken breast), shredded chicken in a
>> sweet milk pudding. Known as blanc manger or white pudding, tavuk g?g?s
>> maintained its chicken content in contemporary Turkish cuisine but lost it
>> in Europe over the centuries.
>>
>>  Calero, an editor of Villena, maintains that it originated in Provence.
> The name is adapted into English and Spanish from French meaning "white
> eating." Hiatt believes the recipes in Form of Curye are similar to Apicius
> recipe "Cibarium//Album", an almond based sweet sauce. Although the basic
> ingredients, almond milk, rice and sugar, came to Europe through the Arabs,
> Perry suspects that only the name, "Harisa de Arroz" (Rice Harisa) can be
> attributed to the Arabs. Hispano-Arab recipes show no record of blancmange.
> The first is in the Catalan text Sent Sovi from the 13th Century not the
> 14th.
> Suey
>
>
-- 
"It is only with the heart that one can see clearly; what is essential is
invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince