The Arabic culinary tradition burst onto the scene in the middle of the tenth century, when al Warrāq compiled a culinary treatise titled al Kitab al Tabikh (The Book of Dishes), containing over 600 recipes. However, it would take another ten centuries for cookery books to be produced in the European continent. For centuries to come, gastronomic writing would remain the sole preserve of the Arab-Muslim world, with cooking manuals and recipe books being produced from Baghdad, Aleppo and Egypt in the East, to Muslim Spain, Morocco and Tunisia in the West.
A total of nine complete cookery books have survived from this time, containing a total of nearly four thousand recipes. The Sultan’s Feast by the Egyptian Ibn Mubārak Shāh in the fifteenth century is one such book. Reflecting the importance of gastronomy in Arab culture, this culinary treatise features more than 330 recipes, from bread-making and omelettes, to sweets, pickling and aromatics, and tips on a range of topics, from essentials a cook should know to how to distil drinkable water.
Available in English for the first time, this critical bilingual volume offers a sophisticated insight into the world of medieval Arabic gastronomic writing.
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Note on transliteration
THE ‘APPETIZERS’
I. INTRODUCTION
II. THE MEDIAEVAL ARAB CULINARY TRADITION
III. THE AUTHOR
IV. THE BOOK: FLOWERY GARDENS OF ELEGANT FOOD
STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION
HERBS AND SPICES
MEATS
FISH
SWEETS
MEASURES
INFLUENCES
THE MAIN COURSE: THE TRANSLATION
Chapter 1. WHAT A COOK SHOULD KNOW
Chapter 2. BREAD MAKING
Chapter 3. ON MAKING WATER DRINKABLE
Chapter 4. ON DISHES
Chapter 5. MAKING MURRI
Chapter 5. MAKING OMELETTES AND OTHER DISHES
Chapter 6. COUNTERFEIT DISHES
Chapter 7. SWEETS
Chapter 8. BEVERAGES, SUCH AS ALCOHOL-FREE BEERS AND SŪBIYYAS
Chapter 9. MILK PREPARATIONS
Chapter 10. PICKLES
Chapter 11. STORING AND PRESERVING FRUIT
Chapter 12. ON MAKING COLD DISHES
Chapter 13. VINEGARS
Chapter 14. AROMATICS
GLOSSARY
GENERAL INDEX
REFERENCES