[Sca-cooks] Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq feast in May

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

While at the Culinary Symposium a couple weeks ago, i was asked to cook the Mists Principality Spring Investiture feast at the end of May. And the autocrat specifically asked for recipes from Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq. Woo-hoo!

I was pleased to find that in 9th & 10th century Baghdad, they actually served a sort of hors d'oeuvre course first, followed by the main meal, and completed with a sweets course. This is unlike the 15th & 16th c. Ottomans, who served sweets and savories together in their courses, and often completed their feasts with cooked sheep's heads and trotters with vinegar sauce.

We will start with hand-cleansing as recommended in Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq - with dry powdery stuff. Hand washing was the autocrat's idea. I pointed out ISAW has two chapters on hand cleansing compounds, and the autocrat quite liked the idea. This should be fun and, well, different.

I have already planned the first course of 4 or 5 cold dishes plus fresh fruit ("opens the stomach"), and the sweets course of a light pudding and "cookies". I have to keep the feast comparatively simple because of budgetary constraints -- so i won't serve 26 dishes like i did in my Greco-Roman feast, probably only around 12.

I cooked a small 12 dish feast for the King and Queen of the West and their royal guests at Pennsic 2007. Several dishes were especially well received (dinner guests were gambling to see who'd get the last piece of something), and it turns out that they were actually from ISAW's book. I had gotten some recipes from Waine's "In a Caliph's Kitchen" - and he didn't mention his sources - and one from a Saudi Aramco article by Charles Perry. So i will include them in this feast.

I haven't quite decided on the dishes in the main course, but i'm making a list of potentials. Lamb was requested, so it will certainly be in the red meat dish. I'll probably also have 2 vegetables, lentils, and fresh pickles.

Rice was not much eaten in Baghdad in the time of ISAW, 9th & 10th c. - it appears in a few recipes, and only cooked to mush (with either savory or sweet ingredients) or used as a flour in sweet dishes, such as Muhalabiyya. So the main starch is bread. If the site has a large clean griddle/grill, i hope to make fresh flat bread for the main course, since there are quite a few bread recipes in ISAW - sadly i'm certain there is no tannur...

ISAW recommended that no beverages be drunk during the meal except a little water - iced water was good for those with hot temperaments, otherwise, at room temperature.

Sakanjubin (stress is actually on the LAST "bean" syllable) was prescribed as an after dinner beverage for those who'd eaten too many sweets, while julab sharab -- syrup of rose water, to be drunk mixed with water -- was for those who'd partaken of too many dishes with vinegar. Sharab is the singular of sharbat, meaning a sweet syrup - this is the generic word. Sakanjubin, from Persian meaning honey vinegar, is a sharab, it is not a generic term for syrup - if it ain't made with vinegar, it ain't sakanjubin. Julab is from Persian gul-ab and literally means "rose water" - it is not a generic term for syrup, although i have seen that argued here - but if it ain't made with rose water, it ain't julab.

Also, there are many food oriented poems in ISAW's book, so i'm thinking of having people read them as the dishes to which they refer are being served. And perhaps we can ask diners to compose short poems about the dishes they like :-)

Well, enough, i'm just so excited to get to do research for a feast. Research is fun!

Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)