AN ISLAMIC DINNER

Islamic feasts in the Society are only occasionally cooked from recipes from period sources; yet Islam was a literate culture early in our period, with the result that there are a number of surviving cookbooks from the 10th to the 15th century. My lord Cariadoc of the Bow and I have been cooking from the cookbooks available in English for some years and now have a large stock of tested Islamic recipes, so I decided to cook a dinner for the Grey Gargoyles' Spring Tournament completely from medieval Islamic recipes. I had three objectives in designing the menu, in addition to making a good dinner that my friends would enjoy: I wanted to show something of the range of medieval Islamic food; I wanted to make it a very low-work feast, so that more of us could enjoy the tourney; and I wanted to reduce the cost as much as possible. Other considerations included balance of flavors, allowing for allergies, and limited kitchen space.

Menu

There are a number of recipes for relishes or dips in the period Islamic cookbooks. The feast started with one of these, Badinjan Muhassa, served with bread. Unfortunately, I know very little about medieval Islamic bread other than the fact that it existed, but I assumed that modern pita bread would be a reasonable guess. Badinjan Muhassa is based on eggplant, ground and toasted walnut, and raw onion; eggplant is probably the most common vegetable in medieval Islamic cookbooks. This version of the recipe is from a 10th century collection; another version is in the 13th-century cookbook of al-Bagdadi.

The main course consisted of Tabâ hajah, a Cooked Dish of Lentils, and Andalusian Chicken, served with rice. The Tabâ hajah is from another of the cookbooks in the 10th-century collection. It is one of those rare period recipes which gives exact quantities for most of the ingredients. It consists of meat (we used lamb) marinated, cooked in oil, and topped with chopped greens. The marinade is based on murri, a condiment widely used in medieval Islamic cooking. Real murri was made by a lengthy process involving fermentation; so far as we know it has not been used since the 15th century. However, there exists a period recipe for quick and cheap imitation murri, and we made up a supply of that for the marinade. Judging by comments, and by the limited amount left over, the Tabâ hajah was the real hit of the feast.

The Cooked Dish of Lentils consists of lentils cooked with onions and spices, with eggs cooked on top at the end. It is one of the easiest dishes I know of, the only real work being chopping the onions, and is a favorite with our after fighter practise crowd. It also provides a main dish for vegetarians (at least those who eat eggs and dairy products). Both this and the Andalusian Chicken are from an Andalusian (Moorish Spanish) cookbook of the 13th century by al-Andalusi.

The original title on the recipe for Andalusian Chicken was just "Another Dish," so I gave it a more descriptive name. It is made by frying the chicken with oil and some seasonings "until it is gilded," simmering it in the juice of onion and green coriander (cilantro), and finally thickening the sauce with breadcrumb and egg.

Of the three main dishes, the lentil dish has neither meat nor wheat, the Tabâ hajah has neither eggs nor dairy products, and the chicken has neither onions nor dairy products, so that someone with any single one of these common food allergies would be able to eat at least one dish. With only three main dishes, I could not allow for multiple allergies. In order that our guests could find out what was in the food, the servers, both kitchens, and the autocrat were provided with a list of all ingredients in each dish, including drinks and desserts.

We served two drinks in addition to water: sekanjabin (a sweet mint drink), and a lemon drink. Both of these are made by making a flavored sugar syrup, which keeps without refrigeration, and diluting it to prepare the drink. Sekanjabin is mentioned by al-Nadim in the 10th century and still survives today; we used a modern Middle-Eastern recipe. The lemon drink comes from an anonymous 13th-century Andalusian cookbook which has a great many recipes for syrup drinks of this sort.

For dessert we served a plate of several pastries and sweets. Khushkananaj is a pastry made with flour and sesame oil with a filling of almonds, sugar, and rosewater. Hais are little balls made of dates, ground nuts, breadcrumbs, and butter. They are a fair amount of work, but as they keep well (the original recipe recommends them as travellers' food) they were made a week in advance. Both of these come from the 13th-century eastern Islamic cookbook of al-Bagdadi. Hulwa is a general term for sweets or candy. There is a recipe for several kinds of hulwa in the 15th-century eastern Islamic cookbook of Ibn al-Mabrad. One kind is rather like modern divinity and can be made with either sugar or honey; we made it for the feast with sugar. A second kind of candy we made is Makshufa, from al-Bagdadi's cookbook, made with sugar, honey, almonds, and sesame oil.

Serving

In the anonymous Andalusian cookbook there is a discussion of whether food should be served with each kind on a separate dish or with everything on one platter: "Many of the great figures and their companions order that the separate dishes be placed on each table before the diners, one after another; and by my life, this is more beautiful than putting an uneaten mound all on the table, and it is more elegant, better-bred, and modern". [p. 24 verso-25 recto in the Arabic original] In spite of his strong words, I decided on the inelegant version. We served each table a large platter with rice on top of which were the chicken, the lamb and the lentils next to each other. The Badinjan Muhassa and the bread were served first in small bowls, and all the desserts for each table on one plate.




Article from Cariadoc's Miscellany. The Miscellany is Copyright (c) by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook, 1988, 1990, 1992. Text adapted by Leopoldo Costa