[Sca-cooks] Ingredient Puzzles in al-Warraq

[Terry Decker]

Samidh (samid) is derived from the Semetic "smd" meaning 'barley flour' or 
'barley bread.'

The word appears in Sanskrit, Farsi, and Arabic.  The following sources 
essentially translate the word as "fine wheat flour":

"...and, {Farsi script} which, if not another dialetical variant, can be 
referred to "samid," white flour, to which the pollen is comparable."

Popenoe, Paul, "The Pollination of the Date Palm, Journal of the American 
Oriental Society Volume 42, page 351.

"samud (A, G) 'finest of flour', Ar. samid, samidh "

Leslau, Wolf, Arabic Loanwords is Ethiopian Semetic, Otto Hassalwitz Verlag, 
1990, pg. 15.

"[405] Arab. "Khubz Samiz;" the latter is the Arabisation of the Pers. 
Samid, fine white bread, simnel, Germ. semmel. "
Burton, Richard F., trans., One Thousand and One Arabian Nights Vol. 11, 
Footnotes, 1886.

As one moves west across North Africa to Spain, the definition of samidh 
appears to be translated as "semolina."  I think this may be due to the type 
of wheat generally available in the different regions.  T. durum being more 
generally available in North Africa.  Durum wheat produces a coarser meal 
than some other wheats and is yellow rather than white.  The differences in 
the translations may be due to where the translators learned their Arabic. 
The validity of this argument would be better answered by someone with 
credentials in the phylology of Semetic languages.

None of the definitions I encountered out side of the ones presented on this 
list made gluten or starch an issue.  A modern Persian recipe I encountered 
called for both samid and normal flour, leaving the impression that samid is 
an extremely fine flour.

If you didn't sieve your emmer, you may have too much bran left in the 
flour.  Bran tends to darken the dough and the final product.

Bear




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Friedman" <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>


Many thanks. Fascinating.

But I still don't know what samidh is. Nasrallah says it is "fine flour,
bran free, high in starch content, and low in gluten." Perry says it is
coarsely ground, which is inconsistent with only the "fine" part of
Nasrallah's description. So what modern flour would fit the description?

One thing I find puzzling is the "low in gluten." al-Warraq uses samidh
for various leavened breads, and I thought the problem with low gluten
flours was that they didn't rise well. Am I mistaken?

My only evidence so far is that the crumbly crackers recipe works with
semolina, doesn't work (too wet) with cake flour or ordinary white
flour. It works with emmer flour. But ...

You are supposed to bake it until it is golden. That fits what happens
with semolina. But the emmer flour I got is whole wheat, it produces a
brown dough, and it's still brown when cooked.

I may try King Arthur's white whole wheat flour next, although it isn't
low in gluten. Other suggestions?