[Sca-cooks] olive oil too expensive to be used as a cooking oil?

lilinah at earthlink.net lilinah at earthlink.net
Fri Feb 3 19:12:31 PST 2012


David/Cariadoc wrote:
> In the Islamic cookbooks, both sesame oil and tail are mentioned explicitly, as 
> is ghee. Off hand I don't remember olive oil being specified, but I haven't 
> looked for it. But "oil" unspecified is common, which makes me suspect that it 
> means olive oil.

Welll, not in ALL Islamic cookbooks.

In Arabic language cookbooks i have seen references to "fine oil", which may be fresh olive oil, but is not 100% clear. Otherwise olive oil is rarely, if ever, mentioned. As Cariadoc points out, what are usually specified are sesame oil, sheep tail fat, and to a lesser extent butter - probably clarified, as Cariadoc notes.

In other Islamic cookbooks in Ottoman Turkish and Persian, butter - probably clarified - and sheep tail fat are specified.

In fact, within SCA-period olive oil entered the Ottoman palaces only as *lamp oil*, so expense was clearly not the issue.

Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)



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