[Sca-cooks] Serving stuff over rice

[David Friedman]

On 10/23/13 8:16 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
> Over rice is a common phrase today, but in actuality rice would have been expensive, unless one is living in the rice growing areas. Adamson mentions it was a luxury foodstuff in the 13th century, but by the 15th century was being traded cross Europe and most often used as rice flour.
My question was actually about Islamic dishes, not European ones (aside 
from al-Andalus, which is both Islamic and European). Rice is reasonably 
common in that cuisine, including dishes where you are adding it, 
apparently in substantial quantities, to something you are cooking. But 
that isn't the same effect as cooking the rice separately without any 
substantial additional ingredients and then serving a dish over it, 
which is what I was asking about.
>
> Today rice is cheap and filling. And the ads for various modern rice dishes often promote instructions or serving advice such as "serve on the side" or "serve over rice."
>
> Also what is the cultural influence of the modern American food scene? We are very accustomed today to eating Asian dishes with rice. Certainly medieval Europeans would not have been so accustomed to it.
>
> Dishes, all sorts of dishes, are routinely photographed over rice, including many in Middle Eastern cookbooks.  That may influence how we think about serving rice and other foods.
>
> I would suspect that serving meats or vegetables over rice became traditional or customary at our Society feasts in part because it's convenient and saves on the number of serving dishes needed.
>
> Why use three serving dishes if or when the food can be served on one platter per table? Who wants to purchase or use more dishes than necessary? Or wash them later? So we combine dishes and serve them together.
The Andalusian Manuscrito Anonimo specifically mentions (and condemns) 
the one platter approach to serving. As best I can tell, it was how 
things were done in al-Andalus prior to changes attributed to Ziryab and 
how they continued to be done elsewhere in al-Islam.

I had thought I remembered the passage specifically referring to serving 
on mounds of rice, but when I checked I found that it didn't.
>
>
> Johnnae
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 22, 2013, at 11:48 PM, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>
>> My standard way of serving various period Islamic dishes is on top of rice. Urtatim recently suggested to me that that might be wrong, historically speaking. Checking the obvious sources, I cannot find any period reference to food being served that way. The closest I can come is a recipe where you cook rice in milk and then put meat on it and serve it--but most rice recipes are considerably more elaborate than that and I didn't find anything along the lines of "and serve it over rice."
>>
>> Does anyone here have evidence for or against the claim that that was how it was served?
>>
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David Friedman
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http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/