[Sca-cooks] What Samidh Flour Isn't

[Johnna Holloway]

> Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of Traditional Arab Sweets has arrived.

On page xv, they define samidh as " in medieval recipes, a type of flour."

On page xvii, they write " There are also times when we simply used our tastebuds in cooking. A case in point is samidh,
an ingredient called for in a number of recipes. Nawal Nasrallah's definition of this type of flour is that it is a finely ground flour, while Charles Perry on the other hand, explains that samidh is coarser than flour. (A Critique' 4, 37). For certain recipes, we tried both flour and extra-fine semolina. The extra-fine worked out well taste-wise and texture-wise. this type of semolina is available in Middle Eastern and Mediteranean markets."

The critique is of course the one from PPC
https://prospectbooks.co.uk/samples/Baghdad-critique.pdf

Nawal Nasrallah writes there: "About samıd,
Perry left it untranslated because ‘it might refer to a
particular kind of wheat.’ It sure does, but you also wonder why Perry
did not himself try to find out what it is for his readers.
According to medieval sources, samıd
in the eastern region of the
Islamic world is a particular kind of fine flour, bran free, high in starch
content, and low in gluten."

Charles Perry replied "On samıd I must differ with Nasrallah.
Samıd referred to a coarser product than flour, as shown by the fact that poppy seed is ground to
samıd (meal) in several recipes, rather than to flour (†a ̨ın or daqıq),
just as poppy seed is typically ground to meal today."  

Johnnae

On Aug 16, 2013, at 11:09 AM, Johnna  wrote:

> Looks like the brand new book Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of ... By Habeeb Salloum, ‎Muna Salloum, Leila Salloum Elias ‎ - 2013 - ‎Calls for “samidh flour.”  snipped
> 
> Johnnae
> 
> On Aug 15, 2013, at 11:14 AM, David Friedman wrote:
> 
>> It's worth noting that Nasrallah's standard description of samidh flour is "high in starch and bran free."
>