[Sca-cooks] Building the Library

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

My two favorite beginner European books are:
-- The Original Mediterranean Cuisine: Medieval Recipes for Today by Barbara Santich.
-- The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy by Odile Redon, Françoise Sabban, Silvano Serventi.

Then persona-wise:

-- Medieval Arab Cookery
Papers by Maxime Rodinson & Charles Perry, with a reprint of A Baghdad cookery Book, by the late Professor A. J. Arberry, and a Foreword by Claudia Roden.
Devon UK : Prospect Books, 2001
ISBN: 0-907325-91-2
Contains three complete cookbooks in translation:
* al–Kitab al–Tabikh (The Book of Dishes) by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Karim al–Katib al-Baghdadi, 1226;
* al–Kitab Wasf al–At'ima al–Mu'tada (The Book of the Description of Familiar Foods), by anonymous, 1373;
* Kitab al–Tibakha ("The Book of Cookery" or perhaps "The Book of the Female Cook"), by Ibn al–Mabrad or al–Mubarrad, 15th century.
Also includes very highly informative essays, four by Maxime Rodinson and eleven by Charles Perry.

9th and 10th century
-- Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens : Ibn Sayyar al–Warraq's Tenth–century Baghdadi Cookbook
Nawal Nasrallah, English translation with Introduction and Glossary

Leiden, The Netherlands : Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007

ISBN–13: 978–9-00415-867-2

A translation of Ibn Sayyar al–Warraq's al–Kitab al–Tabikh (The Book of Dishes). The translation includes historical information, brief biographical notes on everyone mentioned in it, and a very useful glossary, with detailed information on ingredients, prepared foods, cookware, serving dishes, and more.

13th century
-- A Baghdad Cookery Book
translated by Charles Perry

Devon UK : Prospect Books, 2006

ISBN 1–903018–42–0
The best translation in English of al‐Baghdadii's cookbook. Perry returned to the original manuscript, discovered the reason for many of the errors in Arberry's translation, then translated it anew.
 The version is MAC is only Arberry's flawed translation annotated by Perry.

-- An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century
Translated by Charles Perry from the Arabic 
with additional notes by various SCAdians based on Huici Miranda's earlier, often flawed, Spanish translation.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian_contents.htm
A French study found numerous indications that the author was a man from the wealthy social classes of al-Andalus some time before the 1236 conquest of Cordoba. A cultivated man, he included numerous references both literary and dietetic. He lived in Marrakech before 1198, then stayed in Ceuta between 1202 and 1216. He was an Andalusian resident in Ifrikiya (North Africa), more a gourmet traveler than a cook. It features recipes from al-Andalus, all the Maghreb, and the Arab East. Several European scholars think the pages are out of order, which is why the recipes seem to be in such a random order. It has close to 500 recipes

-- Fudalat al–Khiwan fi Tayyibat Al–Ta'am wa-l–Alwan
Relieves de las mesas, acerca de las delicias de la comida y los diferentes platos
Manuela Marin, estudia, traduccion y notas
Somonte-Cenero. Girón (Asturias): Ediciones Trea, S.L., 2007.
ISBN: 978-84-9704-322-9
A translation of the book, based on Mohamed Benchekroun's version in Arabic, published in Beirut in 1984, which was a synthesis of the three known mss.: one nearly complete, one maybe half, and a third of a limited number of folios. Marín includes a biography of ibn Razin, and a detailed discussion of the ingredients, cooking techniques, and utensils, along with the 441 recipes.

-- Scents and Flavors, a Syrian Cookbook
Charles Perry, editor and translator
NYC: New York University Press, 2017
A complete translation of the Kitab al–Wusla ila al–Habib fi Wasf al–Tayyibat wa–al–Tib (variously translated as "the Book of the Relation with the Beloved in the Description of the Best Dishes and Spices" or "the Book of Reaching the Beloved through the Description of Delicious Foods and Perfumes", and others) by 
Ibn al–'Adim, Kamal al–Din 'Umar ibn Ahmad, based on a comparison of a number of the extant manuscripts. It also includes a brief glossary and discussion of weights and measures added by Perry.

14th century
Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table: A Fourteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook
Nawal Nasrallah, translation, introduction, and glossary
Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2018
ISBN–13: 978–90–04–34991–9
Translation of Kanz al–fawa'id fi tanwi' al–mawa'id ("The Treasury of Useful Advice for the Composition of a Varied Table"), an expansive anonymous medieval Arabic–language cookery book, from Mamluk period Egypt. The author of the cookbook, whose identity is uncertain, gives a good deal of information about ingredients, cooking techniques, cleanliness, and more, in his first chapter, "Indispensable Instructions for Cooks". Then there are 23 chapters of 820 recipes. Plus a glossary added by Nasrallah.

For those who feel they are not ready to work with the original recipes there are several useful books:

-- Scheherazadeʹs Feasts : Foods of the Medieval Arab World
Leila Salloum Elias, Muna Salloum, and Habeeb Salloum

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013

ISBN–13: 978–0–8122–4477–9

Recipes translated by the authors from seven medieval Arabic-language cookbooks ― six available in English: 
* Kitab al-Tabīkh by ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, 9-10 c. (Baghdad)
* Kitab al-Tabīkh by al-Baghdadi, 1226 (Baghdad)
* Kitab Wusla ila'l-habib fī wasf al-tayyabat wa'l-tib, probably by Ibn al-'Adim, early 13 c. (Syria)
* anonymous Andalusian cookbook, mid–13 c. (al-Andalus)
* Kitab Fadalat al- khiwan fī tayyibat al-ta'am w'al-alwan by ibn Razīn al-Tujibi, 2nd quarter 13 c. (al-Andalus) (not yet available in English)
* Kanz al- fawa'id fī tanwi' al-mawa'id, 14 c. (Egypt)
* Kitab al–Tibakha by ibn Mabrad or Mubarrad, 15 c. (Syria)
The translations are followed by modern worked-out recipes. Some of the modern recipes replace wheat starch, which i've found in Middle Eastern and South Asian markets, with cornstarch, well out of SCA–period. A few other items from the world of modern Arabic sweets are also used. Still the authors' knowledge of the preparation of modern sweets informs their interpretations in ways that can truly help people unfamiliar with traditional sweets in the Near and Middle East in making them. Recommended.

-- Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights: the Story of Traditional Arab Sweets
Leila Salloum Elias, Muna Salloum, and Habeeb Salloum

London, UK : I.B. Tauris, 2013

ISBN–13: 978–1–78076–464–1

Sweets recipes translated from 7 medieval Arabic language cookbooks. See details above.

-- The Sweets of Araby: Enchanting Recipes from the Tales of the 1,001 Arabian Nights.
Leila Salloum Elias and Muna Salloum.

Woodstock, VT : Countryman Press, 2011.

ISBN–13: 978–0–88150–929–8

This book is less ambitious than Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights, with fewer recipes, but still useful because there are no redundancies.

PERSIAN LANGUAGE COOKBOOKS

1521
* A Persian Cookbook: The Manual by Bavarchi
Saman Hassibi and Amir Sayadabdi (translators)
Devon UK : Prospect Books, 2018
ISBN -13: 978-1-909248-59-5
Hassibi and Sayadabdi are food scholars and doctoral candidates at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
A translation into English of Kar–nama dar bab–e tabbakhi wa san'at–e an ("Manual on cooking and its craft")
Haji Mohammad–'Ali ibn Mirza Budaq Bavarchi Bagdadi, also romanized as Ba'urchi,
 22 chapters (chapters 23–26 on various vegetables are missing), each dealing with a particular type of group of food preparation, for a total of 135 recipes.


A little information about and seven recipes from Ba'urchi's cookbook
translated by Shahrzad Ghorashian

http://www.aashpaz.com/newwordpress/persian–cuisine–bavarchi/

1594
* Dining at the Safavid Court: 16th Century Royal Persian Recipes
M. R. Ghanoonparvar (author and translator)
Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1-568593-06-7
A translation of Maddat al–hayat. Resala dar 'elm–e tabbaki (The substance of life, a treatise on the art of cooking) by 
Ostad Nurollah (also romanized as Nur–Allah)
, chef to Shah 'Abbas I. Six chapters: four on rice dishes, one on qalyeh (stewed meat dishes), and one on aash (thick soups). There are many editorial problems with this book, but it is well worth owning.

OTTOMAN COOKBOOK
* 15. Yuzyil Osmanli Mutfagi (15th Century Ottoman Cuisine)

Muhammed bin Mahmud Shirvani, original author

Mustafa Argunshah and Mujgan Chakir (authors, editors, and translators)
Istanbul : Gokkubbe, 2005

ISBN–10 : 975–6223–84–7

Shirvani, an Azerbaijani from the city of Shirvan (which was Persian at that time), was a scholar and physician to Sultan Murad II. Shirvani translated al-Baghdadi's cookbook into Eski Osmanli at the request of Sultan Murad II, circa 1430, then appended 87 Ottoman recipes at the end of his manuscript. Shirvani sometimes enhanced or altered al-Baghdadi's recipes to suit preparation in the kitchens of the Sultanʹs palace in Edirne. This translation, with comments, into modern Turkish of the complete work of Shirvani's includes the original text transcribed into the modern Turkish alphabet.

I hope this helps.

Urtatim al-Qurtubiyya
(that's urr-tah-TEEM)