[Sca-cooks] Arabic terminology in Anonymous Andalusian and Kitab Wasf al-At’imah al-Mu’tada (The Description of Familiar Foods)

[Terry Decker]

If memory serves, you will likely want to look at Baumer, The History of Central Asia Vol. 2, which provides information about the interaction of Persia and China.  I skimmed the text last year, so I may or may not be correct.

Using sources in English about the etymology of "sharbat" it appears to be a loan word into Persian from the Arabic root "sharaba" (to drink).  "Sharbat" and "sharab" are related but not the same.  Usage in Late Medieval Arabic, "sharbat" refers to a drink of fruit juice and sugar, while "sharab" is a reference to wine or a drink containing alcohol.  The words appear, in various spellings, in Arabic, Farsi and Turkic (keep in mind that these are all languages with different roots that have shared words).

If my sources are correct (please take with a grain of salt until you verify), the syrups appear in Avicenna's Canon of Medicine (early 11th Century) and the word "sharbat" appears in Gorgani's Zakhira-i Khawarazmshahi (12th Century Persian).  There may be other earlier references that I haven't encountered, but your Chinese references may come out of trade with Persia between the 10th and 12th Centuries.

Bear


On 3/13/2019 6:41:51 PM, Alec Story <avs38 at cornell.edu> wrote:
I'm working on a project where I'm trying to draw a line between several
sharbat recipes I found in a 13th century Chinese cookbook - and they are
called "sharbats" in that book - and the sharbats of the Arabic world.

I can't read Arabic though, and my usual sources are off at Gulf wars. I'm
in a bind because I neglected to ask them this question - and I need to
submit my documentation soon :)

Do any of the gentlefolk on this list know if the syrups in the Anonymous
Andalusian (
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading491)
use the term "sharbat?"
http://italophiles.com/andalusian_cookbook.pdf indicates
that they are "sharab" which certainly sounds like it's the same word. Is
that the same as
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%A9#Arabic, which is
descended or at least related to the Persian sharbat?

What about the Laimun Safarjali ("lemon quince") from Kitab Wasf al-At’imah
al-Mu’tada (The Description of Familiar Foods)? I learned of it from this
author
https://sableroseblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/laimun-safarjali-quince-lemon-syrup/,
but I don't have access to the translation in Medieval Arab Cookery by
Charles Perry to see if they mention sharbat in the original text.

Is it accurate to conclude that these drinks, along with Sekenjabin,
represent a continuum of sweet and sour beverage syrups?

--
Þorfinnr Hróðgeirsson