[Sca-cooks] Redactions from the Maddat al-Hayat

[Jim and Andi Houston]

I taught a series of classes yesterday at the Cooking and Dance Symposium
here in Trimaris on Urtatim's unpublished manuscript translation of the 16th
century Maddat al-Hayat. We cooked three polaws and a decoration:

 

#9 Baqali-Polaw (polaw with broad beans)

 

#44 Gura-Polaw (polaw with unripe grapes)

 

#56 Susu-Polaw (the untitled one with bread above and below)

 

The nargisi kofta from #4 Qobuli-ya Murassa

 

We worked directly from the manuscript for each one. I explained the method
used for cooking the rice and introduced the "weird" ingredients. The
students tasted kashk, shelled and peeled fresh fava beans, tasted good
verjus, and cooked a lot of lamb and onions. 

 

The resulting polaws were served to the populace on the dayboard. Everything
disappeared rapidly and we received many, many compliments. Out of the three
polaws, #56 (lamb, onion, walnuts, kashk, garlic, and mint) seemed to the
favorite. 

 

Teaching a class like this- where we cook the dishes without a modern recipe
or modern measurements, directly from the manuscript, was huge fun and I
will definitely do it again. It helped that most of the people in the class
were confident home cooks! My ulterior motive was to introduce the populace
to the manuscript because I want to do a feast out of it in 2014.

 

My deepest thanks to Urtatim for the hard work of finding and translating
this fascinating fragment of cooking history, which produces some really
delicious food.

 

Madhavi