[Sca-cooks] Mishmishiya question
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Thu Mar 24 23:45:43 PDT 2011
This website:
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/sca/DietMuslims.html
published some info on animal bones excavated from sites in the town
of Tuneinir in the Kingdom of Sinjar in eastern Syria dating from the
12th and 13th centuries.
Percentages vary with sites. I am synopsizing here:
-- Sheep/Goats - 72.5% to over 77%
-- Cattle - 9% to almost 13.5%
-- Fowl, including Chickens - only 2.8% in one site and not in others
(i guess the fowl market was somewhere else on those sites)
-- Pig (yes, pig) - 1.5 to 6.5%
-- Gazelle - 0.2 to 2% (i suppose one could substitute venison for this)
Other animal bones (maybe eaten, but not necessarily eaten) at 1.3% or less:
-- Donkey
-- Horse
-- Camel
-- Dog
-- Cat
-- Fox
-- Lion
Data from a site in Jerusalem, 12th - 14th centuries, showed:
50.9% Sheep/Goat
15.6% Ox/Cattle
11.7% Pig
9.8% Bird (Chicken, Duck, and Pigeon)
1.9% Horse/Donkey
1.9% Dog
1.9% Cat
1.9% Turtle
1.9% Fish
This perhaps reflects a more ethnically and religiously diverse community
---
Primarily Arabic communities (which would include Arab Christians,
Muslims, and Jews) differ in eating habits from the Ottoman capital
and nearby royal cities, for which we have a fair bit of data (we
have little from Ottoman controlled Anatolia unfortunately).
Certainly in the areas controlled by the Ottomans with primarily Arab
populations ate Arabic food. Since this concerns a royal feast, i
would lean toward palace food, for which we have menus and recipes.
The Ottoman palace ate lamb and chicken (a lot of chicken). That's
it, except for beef entering the kitchen once a year to make
bastirma, which apparently was eaten in the palace during Ramadan,
cooked with sauteed onions.
According to the Bursa Edict of Standards, 1502, the primary meats
sold in the major cities were sheep and goat. Chickens were sold in
another market, and were 3 to 4 times more expensive than sheep or
goat by weight. There was no regulated fish market, as fish were
eaten almost exclusively by Christians and Jews. Again, beef was rare
within SCA period - for a variety of reasons, it became more common
in the 17th c. - and does not appear in these official regulations.
Now, as someone trying to cook a feast on a budget, you may have to
make unlikely substitutions. So if you have venison, substitute it
for sheep. I just think it less likely that Ottoman nobility would be
eating Mishmishiyya.
--
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list