The multiplicity of possible approaches implies that the foodstyle of a culture can be discussed in a number of ways, ranging from historical and economic to social and anthropological. In the case of the present study, two modes of presentation seemed to be more fitting than others. One involved following a nineteenth-century manual titled Notes and Queries on Anthropology which contains a huge set of instructions in the form of a complex questionnaire, meant to guide anthropologists in their field work. The questionnaire, proposed by a Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and recently rediscovered by Peter Heine, covered all possible aspects of human life, food culture included. The appropriate section, arranged according to areas such as “foodstuffs and their preparation,” “presentation and storage of food,” “cooking,” “condiments,” “prescribed and forbidden foods,” “exceptional foods,” etc., provides a researcher with convenient guidelines for investigation.
Investigating a complex and multifaceted medieval Cairene food culture from the anthropologists’ perspective means, however, depriving the study of its historical, political, and some of the social contexts. Besides, such an approach would inevitably involve countless repetitions. Cheese, for example, would have to be considered first in the category of foods that were eaten fresh, then of those that were cooked, then of those eaten cold, then of those eaten hot/warm. Furthermore, it should also be discussed in a section dealing with milk and forms of its preservation as well as in a section dealing with salted preserves—to mention only the most obvious of cheese’s possible classifications. In effect, one might fail to discuss its varieties, its social standing, or its popularity as a menu item.
Another possible way of arranging the research would be to follow the order of some of the medieval Arabic cookery books. The recipes presented in Arabic cookbooks are often organized according to a similar scheme, though particular works differ in details. In the case of Kitab Wasf al-A'tima al-Mu'tada (“The Book of Description of Familiar Foods”), for example, the chapters include:
1. sour dishes (hawamid) and their varieties;
2. simple/plain dishes (sawadh); 3. fried dishes (qalaya) and dry dishes (nawashif);
4. porridges (hara'is) and oven dishes (tannuriyyat)
5. fried dishes (mutajjanat), cold dishes (bawarid), and samosas (sanbusik);
6. fish (samak), both fresh and salted;
7. vinegar pickles (mukhallat), relishes (saba'igh), and condiments (mutayyibat);
8. puddings (jawadhib and akhbisa);
9. sweetmeats (halawat);
10. pancakes (qata'if) and biscuits (khushkananaj, etc.);
11. digestive beverages (hadimat);
12. dishes for the sick and dishes eaten by the Christians during the Lent.
Such an arrangement, apparently natural for the medieval Arab cooks and consumers, and probably attractive for an experimenter-cook of today as well, does not, however, seem to make much sense as a framework for research. Differentiating between the dishes according to their being or not being sour, and then, concurrently, dividing others according to the style of frying, etc., would not only confuse the reader, but also make it impossible for the researcher to make clear and systematic comments about a culinary culture which invented and practiced this approach.
At the same time, constructing the study according to chronological order was out of the question, if only because following the chronology of over five hundred years history of a complex culinary culture does not make much sense. Nor was it possible to apply the sociologically-oriented research questions suggested by Richard M. Mirsky in his “Perspectives in the Study of Food Habits.” Finally, organizing the study according to food courses was also unfeasible, as in the medieval Arabic-Islamic food culture there was generally no tradition of distinguishing between what we know as starters, soups, main courses, desserts, etc., let alone of serving meals according to different groups of foodstuffs.
Under such circumstances, the only way to make the inquiry and its presentation relatively clear and effective was to organize it according to main food categories. In other words, to combine the pattern applied in the food science with that which guides authors who write on the lore of the kitchen. In effect, the food of medieval Cairo will be discussed according to the following order:
1. Cereals:
A. Millet and sorghum;
B. Barley;
C. Rice;
D. Wheat
2. Meat
3. Fowls and eggs
4. Fish
5. Dairy products
The scheme not only makes it possible to investigate in an orderly way what the ordinary Cairenes of the Middle Ages actually ate, but also to reveal various historical contexts of their menu. It also allows one to answer a number of questions which are so important from the anthropologists’ perspective, such as whether a given substance was eaten fresh or raw, warm or cold, or whether it was customized to the local tastes and needs by means of drying, salting, fermenting, or preserving. Furthermore, such a scheme makes it possible to allude to the batterie de cuisine and the techniques of food preparation and allows one to mention what was proscribed. Wherever the names of plants or fishes may raise doubts or be considered confusing, Latin names of species are given.
In one of his first remarks referring to Egypt, Leo Africanus noted that its inhabitants “are good people, polite and very generous. They eat a lot of milk and fromages frais. But they also consume lots of sour milk and milk which they curd by themselves. They salt their fromages enormously. So much so that a foreigner who is not accustomed to their food is not able to enjoy what they savor. To almost all their soups they add sour milk.” The comment, valid as it probably was for the Egyptian countryside, was only partly applicable to Cairo. As far as the consumption of dairy products was concerned, Cairenes differed from villagers in two respects. First, although they indeed used sour milk in their cookery, they were not so fond of it as to add it “to almost all their soups.” And, second, they could not eat fresh milk or fresh cheese too often. Due to the Egyptian climate considerations, fresh milk could not stay fresh for long and its rapid transformation into sour curds was inevitable. But the curds, if not subjected to a further preserving process, did not keep for long either. Therefore, the Egyptians “salted their fromages enormously.” Maybe that was why the Maghrebian/Andalusian mujabbanat, or sweets made of cheese, remained unknown to the culinary culture of Egypt and the Near East in general. Apart from sweetened rice with milk, the only milky sweetmeat to be consumed in Cairo was fresh cream (qishta) topped with honey, syrup, or molasses. Salted cheese prevailed not only in the Egyptian cheese selection but, also, predominated in the diet of many Egyptians for an average Cairene it was an important menu item, while for the country people and the Cairene poor it was one of their staples. This was true throughout the Middle Ages and remained so for long after the Middle Ages were over. In the tenth/sixteenth and eleven/seventeenth centuries a very greasy, very salty, very fermented, and extremely cheap cheese consumed in huge quantities by the peasants and the poor still caught attention of foreign travelers. Its perishable nature notwithstanding, halib, or fresh milk, was from time to time indispensable. It was used, above all, for the making of certain condiments as well as in dishes the preparation of which involved cooking rice in milk. Of the latter category, the most typical was probably a very simple but famous dish known as “rice with milk,”as well as various versions of rukhamiyya, or “marble dish.” Rukhamiyya was always based on rice cooked in milk but, depending on the recipe, it could be made with meat, or with chicken and almonds, or with sugar and tail fat, or simply seasoned with Ceylon cinnamon, ginger, and mastic. Fresh milk was also indispensable in some kinds of ma'muniyya, a sweet dish of rice, and in jawadhib, or sweet puddings made from bread or bread crumbs steeped in milk and baked in the oven under roasting meat. The most unusual fresh milk preparations were, however, two fermented, sharp-tasting condiments called kawamikh. Of these, kamakh ryal was made of grains of rotted barley or wheat which, pounded and kneaded with salt and fresh milk, was left in the sun until browned.
According to Charles Perry, the fermentation process, involving the action of the Penicillium molds, resulted in the aroma characteristic of blue cheese. The preparation of the other condiment, called kamakh rijal, was more time-consuming. Basically, kamakh rijal was made of a mixture of yoghurt, fresh milk, and salt that, left on the rooftop for four summer months to age, developed a cheese-like aroma. The mixture was fed daily with fresh milk, so with time it thickened and became “like a very sharp, salty semi-liquid cheese, with a hint of rancidity from the oxidation of the butterfat.” However indispensable the fresh milk was in some preparations, it was less universal, and less frequently called for, than sour milk or yoghurt. The two products, both known in Arabic as laban, could be used as an ingredient in sour meat stews, in a number of the so-called saba'igh and, occasionally, in fish sauces. Saba'igh were relishes made of vegetables such as eggplant, gourd, or Swiss chard that, cooked and dried, were put in yoghurt which had previously been mixed with garlic. In a similar way yoghurt could be served with fried salted fish, mixed with garlic and sprinkled with nigella seeds and Chinese cinnamon. A combination of yoghurt and garlic inevitably brings to mind an appetizer known in Greece as tzatziki, which is made of strained yoghurt mixed with finely diced cucumbers, onion, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and a selection of herbs. Its Turkish version, made with similar ingredients, is called cacik and differs from tzatziki in that it is diluted with water. The Arabic-Islamic food culture of the Middle Ages was not unfamiliar with the dish. It was called jajiq and, similarly to contemporary versions, was made of strained yoghurt seasoned with a combination of flavorings which could include salt, fennel, mint, mastic, charlock, and olive oil. Depending on the recipe, it could be enriched with chopped cucumber or thick white cheese; garlic, however, was kept away from the dish. Jajiq was mentioned in at least three late medieval Cairene sources. However, as two of them are cookery books, and the third is a fantasy story, none can be considered trustworthy enough as evidence confirming the consumption of the dish by Cairenes. As for meat stews, yoghurt was added to, above all, madira, a dish basically made of fat meat, onions, leeks, and melted sheep’s tail fat and seasoned with Chinese cinnamon and coriander. It was also a crucial ingredient in labaniyya, or “yoghurt dish,” which was made by adding an evaporated stew of meat, onions, eggplants, and mint to boiling yoghurt. In a dish called rukhamiyya, rice was generally cooked in fresh milk. In one of its versions, however, rice could be also cooked in yoghurt and served with pieces of fried meat put on the surface of rice. In the recipe for chicken laymuniyya (“lemon dish”), curdled or strained yoghurt (laban mujabban), seasoned with fresh mint, was used to tone down the thick, sour-sweet combination of syrup, lemon juice, and almonds in which pieces of chicken were cooked.
What is important, al-hajjar composed his list for literary rather than documentary purposes and, most likely, based it on diverse sources, both written and oral. As such, the list seems to reflect the terminology used in the Arabic language of the ninth/fifteenth-century Near East rather than the actual offer of the Cairene market. Nevertheless, many of al-Hajjar’s cheeses could doubtlessly be found in the shops of the city’s cheese dealers. However, because in the case of consumable goods of the past a given name may not always be ascribed to the product, only a partial identification of Cairene cheeses is possible. The cheeses available in Cairo were both domestically produced and imported. The bulk of the imported products and a certain part of the domestic production were distributed through the agency of Dar al-Jubn. Dar al-Jubn, or the Fustati “Cheese House,” was the main cheese warehouse and bazaar where importers, producers, agents, wholesalers, and retailers did their businesses. The corresponding institution for Cairo was, most probably, Wikalat al-Jubn or “Cheese Agency.”Apart from that place, Cairenes could buy cheeses either from labban or “sour milk dealer” who, most probably, was also a manufacturer of the yoghurt cheese, or from samman, nominally “clarified butter dealer” who, among many other things he offered, sold also cheese which was stored in oil filled jars. Cheeses from Syria were sold by cheese dealers (jabbanun) who had their shops just outside the gate of Bab Zuwayla. Imported cheeses were brought to Egypt from Europe as well as from the Levant. The European kinds included Cretan and, above all, Sicilian cheeses, which constituted the bulk of cheese import from the northern Mediterranean. All of them had to be durable enough to survive the sea journey and then the Alexandria-Cairo route. According to David Jacoby, the only kinds of Cretan cheeses suitable for export were ripened and hard cheeses made from the curd of soured milk pressed together to form a solid mass. For better preservation, such cheeses were either rubbed with dry salt or soaked in brine for some time, after which they were left to dry in a shady place. A late sixteenth-century Jewish source from Italy refers to this kind of cheese as grana. Apart from that, not much is known about the kinds of cheeses which were imported from Crete. A fifteenth-century European visitor to Egypt defined them vaguely as “white,”while the author of an eleventh- or twelfth-century Jewish letter written in Alexandria mentioned a “mixed” (makhlut) cheese from Crete. Neither of the designations is informative enough to deduce what kind of cheese is referred to. As for Sicilian cheeses, they must have been very much like Cretan ones. Formed in molds of many different sizes and weights they were most probably dry and hard ripened cheeses. Each of the molds imported by the Jewish merchants for the Jewish community in Egypt bore an appropriate stamp. Unlike the locally produced kinds, Cretan and Sicilian cheeses must have been costly and accessible only to the better-off Cairenes. They were probably eaten with bread, as an appetizer or a side dish. But Sicilian cheese could also be used in cooking. In a recipe for dietetic “dishes of dried pulses” it is thrown, together with cumin and cinnamon, on the surface of lentils, chickpeas, broad beans, or other pulses which, cooked into a thick consistency, were mixed with garlic, onions, fat, and green coriander.As a sophisticated Cairene version of the recipe for isfidhabaj indicates, there was also a cheese called Rumi, the name which suggests it was brought from ar-Rum, or Byzantium. Indeed, Egypt imported cheeses from ar-Rum, but the name Rumi could as well refer to some kind of the most ancient (and most durable) Roman cheeses, such as, say, pecorino romano. Apart from the above-mentioned recipe for isfidhabaj, the term al-jubn ar-Rumi was rarely referred to in the culinary literature, if at all. The same is true, in fact, of other kinds of written sources, which means that there are few historical clues to the characteristics of this cheese. Nevertheless, it inevitably brings to mind hard, dry, sharp, climate-proof, yellowish gibna Rumi of today. Actually, the Rumi cheese was not de rigeur in isfidhabaj, or “white dish,” as the Persian name indicates. Of many different recipes for the stew, some of which do not mention cheese at all, one calls for undefined cheese, and another for al-jubn ash-Shami, or Syrian cheese. Syrian cheese seems to have been more popular in Cairo than the European cheeses. Available from the little shops neighboring on the gate of Bab Zuwayla, it could be added to omelettes and scrambled eggs, to za'tar, a condiment made of thyme, salt, olive oil, and/or yoghurt, or to a rice and meat stew called narjasiyya, cooked with carrots and flavored with pepper, coriander, and cumin. Actually, it is not clear which kinds of cheese were imported to Cairo from Syria. It is very probable, however, that they had something in common with traditional sheep/goat Levantine-Syrian preserved cheeses of today, such as labneh, a dried fat cheese made of strained yoghurt formed into balls and stored in olive oil, or shanklish, a ripened, moldy cheese in form of little dry balls made of defatted yoghurt coagulum and stored covered in ground thyme, or shalal, a salty white cheese made up of thin strands woven together and stored in salty brine. According to S.D. Goitein, Egypt had to import cheeses because the domestic production was insufficient. But the insufficiency of domestic cheese production was limited to the periods of drought or pestilence and, as such, could hardly have been a reason for importing overseas cheeses. Moreover, those who particularly suffered from the possible periodical insufficiency of Egyptian cheese could not afford substituting it with the imported product anyway. Therefore, it seems that Egyptian market’s demand for European and Levantine cheeses was caused not so much by the shortage of the domestic product, but by the fact that the Cretan, Sicilian, or Syrian offer was simply different in flavor, composition, and texture from the local kinds. In other words, as quite different kinds of product, the imported and the domestic cheeses satisfied different tastes and met different needs. Since by its nature traditionally made cheeses are very local specialties, it is very tempting to conclude that the imported cheeses filled the gap which the Egyptian producers, with their particular ingredients and particular technologies, could not manage to fill. Generally, Egyptian cheeses were salted, soft and semi-soft fromage type cheeses, preferably made of buffalo or cow milk, or a mixture of the two. The share of the goat and sheep milk in the Egyptian cheese production seems to have been lower than that in the northern Mediterranean and Levantine countries. The main center of the Egyptian cheesemaking industry was the départment of Damietta, or the northeastern part of the Gharbiyya province. It was from there that at least part of the deliveries of al-jubn al-jamusi, or popular and appreciated buffalo cheese, was brought to Cairo.The province was famous not only for water buffalos. Adding to its reputation were its Khaysiyya cows, which were the most highly prized Egyptian milk-cows, and its Khaysi cheese, which was a cheese made of these cows’ milk. According to Yaqut, the name al-baqar al-Khaysiyya, or the Khaysiyya cows, derived from Khays, a rural district in the western part of Egypt. One of the earliest records referring to the consumption of this cheese in the al-Fustat—Cairo area dates back to the early fifth/eleventh century, when it was mentioned in the context of khayyasun, or “those who carry al-Khaysi cheese to Misr [al-Fustat] and who are Christians.” Another interesting reference to al-Khaysi cheese dates back to the ninth/fifteenth century and can be found the hisba manual written by Ibn Bassam. In fact, the context in which the cheese is mentioned is a rather weird one: Ibn Bassam warns that the bazaar swindlers should “not wash al-Khaysi cheese in the washrooms of the baths.” It is difficult to ascertain why al-Khaysi cheese was washed at all—whether because the manufacturing process required such a procedure, because soaking was to remove the surplus of salt from the heavily salted cheese, or because the cheese’s outward layer, produced by the heavily salted brine in which it was preserved, had to be rinsed. Whatever its reason, the procedure of washing as applied to al-Khaysi cheese implies that it could be neither a hard and dry type of cheese nor a fresh cheese of the fromage type. One clue as to the nature of al-Khaysi cheese may be provided by the so-called gibna beda, or gibna Dumyati, the contemporary white, soft, salty cheese produced in the same Damietta district. The contemporary Dumyati cheese producers are said to boast about the antique roots of the product, which is apparently believed to have originated to the early Hellenistic epoch. Due to the absence of the source information, it is impossible to investigate the ancient past of the Dumyati cheese. Assuming,however, that soft, white, salty cheese had indeed been manufactured in the Damietta area as early as in the Hellenistic period, it seems probable that a similar kind of cheese was also produced there in the Middle Ages. Although the connection is of a somewhat mythical nature, it nevertheless allows one to consider the contemporary Dumyati cheese as the possible successor of medieval al-Khaysi cheese. Dumyati cheese is made of a mixture of buffalo and cow milk which, salted and heated, is coagulated by the addition of rennet. The coagulum is ladled out into wooden molds which, during the next three days, are frequently turned in order to drain the whey. For fresh consumption, the molds are removed and the cheese is cut into square pieces. Batches of cheese destined for storage are pickled by storing them in salted whey for four to eight months. Then the cheese is cut into pieces, packed into suitable containers, and completely covered with brine. As it ripens in the brine, it acquires a firmer texture and an acidic taste. The necessity to wash out the layer produced by the preserving brine may be the reason why the Cairene cheese dealers washed, or soaked, al-Khaysi cheese in “the washrooms of the baths.” When Judar, an impoverished Cairene fisherman of one of the Arabian Nights’ stories, was once asked about what he would like to eat most of all, he did not have to consider the answer for too long. As his dreams were simple, the first thing which came to his mind was bread with cheese. Judar’s mother, when asked the same question, replied in an identical way. Being poor, they did not mean any of the imported varieties. What they had in mind could be some kind of salty Egyptian fromage. Most probably, however, they dreamt about fried cheese, because fried cheese, served by the street vendors with fresh, warm bread, was one of the Cairenes’ most popular foods. In fact, jubn maqli, or fried cheese, a dish which consisted of cheese cooked in oil was, as Mustafa Ali noticed, “their food day and night.” Mustafa Ali, a cultured Ottoman official, had no understanding for this atypical predilection. He was clearly irritated by the fact that “they stretched out their hands for it in blind greed,” and he considered the dish “heavy, indigestible food” which “caused a weakening of vision and led to blindness.” Contrary to the appearances, fried cheese was not exclusively the food of the poor. In the Ayyubid times, it was included, together with many refined food items, in the contents of the so-called raghif al-siniyya, an elite dish which was, in fact, a kind of temperature-proof picnic basket made of dough. During the Mamluk epoch, at least some of the sultans relished fried cheese.
An-Nasir Muhammad was so fond of the specialty that he ordered it to be served to him every night, together with some other of his favorite snacks. Moreover, he apparently could not live without it: when he went to Hijaz for a pilgrimage, he took cheese fryers with him. An-Nasir Muhammad made a perfect match with Tughay Khatun, his beloved wife. When she decided to go for a pilgrimage, a number of milk cows had to go with her all the way to Hijaz and back, as she could not do without fresh yoghurt and cheese. Karim ad-Din al-Kabir, the inspector of the sultan’s private treasury (nazir al-khass) who was entrusted with organizing the hajj expedition and who took personal care of the sultan’s wife, fried cheese for her twice a day. In the Circassian epoch, fried cheese was still in vogue. Moreover, in the somewhat impoverished cuisine of the declining Mamluk state it apparently gained the status of de luxe food (ma'akil fakhira). Ibn Iyas recorded that it was served at festive parties held by the members of state elites during the reign of al-Ashraf Qaytbay and that it was eaten by sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri and his officers during various festive banquets and picnics. Khayr Bak, the first Ottoman viceroy in Egypt and the last Mamluk governor to reside in the Citadel of Cairo, must have appreciated fried cheese, too, as he continued the tradition of taking it for picnics. It is in fact not impossible that the Turks who in the mid-eleventh/seventeenth century spent their days “drinking coffee and eating cheese on the river boats,” ate fried cheese, too. Fried cheese, one of the most characteristic food items of medieval Cairo, survived the Ottoman occupation, but with time its popularity clearly decreased. By the end of the twelfth/eighteenth century al-Jabarti could still comment on a certain cheese fryer, but this was probably the only (and the last post-tenth/sixteenth-century) record referring to fried cheese in Cairo. Today fried cheese (in fact deep-fried or broiled) is eaten in Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey, where it is usually served for breakfast. In most cases, it is halloumi, a semi-soft, salty cheese made of a mixture of goat and sheep milk coagulated with the use of rennet. Halloumi is one of the few kinds of cheese that do not melt when heated. Greeks prefer to use feta, a curd cheese made from sheep milk, or a mixture of sheep and goat milk, which can also be fried. Both the halloumi, apparently an original Cypriot invention, and feta, the traditional Greek cheese, were, most probably, unknown in medieval Cairo. But the local al-Khaysi cheese, of which Cairenes had an ample supply, was just as good: it was salty and feta-like, it did not melt when heated, and it could be consumed fried. Actually, it seems that cheese fryers were selling al-Khaysi cheese in the streets of medieval Cairo. Interestingly, the cheese which was meant for frying had to be washed thoroughly before it was placed in the frying pan. Most probably, washing was meant to remove the surplus of salt in which cheese was preserved.
The definition, apparently based on al-Firuzabadi’s Qamus (the eighth/fourteenth century), was also used by Butrus al-Bustani, whose dictionary dates back to the same period as Lane’s; however, al-Bustani added that “then [the cheese] dries.” Interestingly, this description, while not fitting the contemporary product bearing that name, agrees perfectly with the characteristics of medieval halum as described in a number of recipes preserved in Kanz. According to these recipes, halum was unfermented, unrenneted, non ripening soft cheese made by evaporating water from fresh milk which had been seasoned with thyme and salt. In other words, the milk was cooked until its “wateriness was gone” so that only “milkiness and fatness” remained. When the milkiness and fatness was cooled down, it became a cheese, which had a form of fatty, grainy, yellowish substance, and which could be further prepared for consumption in a variety of ways.
The simplest way involved cutting it up into small pieces and keeping for three days in a jar filled with salted and thymed sheep’s milk. Other recipes were more refined. In one of them, for example, cheese was to be put in an earthenware urn (matar) in layers alternating with layers of peeled bitter orange, kubbad oranges, citrons, lemons, and fresh thyme. The contents of the urn, composed this way, was then covered with boiling milk, pressed, and left for some time to ripen. One could also prepare halum by covering it, cut it into pieces, with a marinade of garlic crushed with salt and oil, green lemon juice, wine vinegar, ground toasted hazelnuts, ginger, milled coriander, caraway, mint, and a branch of rue. In yet another recipe halum was macerated in an exceedingly rich sauce composed of minced mint, rue, thyme, ground mustard seeds, vinegar, pepper, ginger, ground dried rosebuds, garlic crushed with olive oil, salt, lemon juice, toasted walnuts, toasted coriander and caraway, and tahina. Unlike the halum, no historical recipes for qarish cheese survived in medieval cookery books. As qarish is still manufactured in Egypt in a traditional way, the contemporary technology may offer some clues regarding the historical product. The same refers to mishsh, another popular Egyptian cheese with a long historical record. One of the first remarks referring to jubn qarish, or “qarish cheese,” is included in the chronicle written by the Fatimid vizier Ibn al-Ma*"mun where, however, no clues regarding the characteristics of the cheese are provided. Supposing, however, that the local tradition preserved the name together with the product and technology of production, we can assume that medieval qarish was a salted, soft, defatted white cheese made of buffalo or cow milk, or a mixture of the two. We can also assume that its production involved milking the buffalo or cow directly to a large, earthenware jar which was left undisturbed for some time until the fat formed a surface layer, leaving the defatted, sour milk underneath. After the cream layer had been skimmed, the curd was poured into a reed-type mat to drain. Then the mat was squeezed and hung to dry. After two or three days the cheese, cut into pieces and salted, was ready for consumption. Strangely enough, in his Delectable War, al-Hajjar defined qarish as moldy ('afin). As this feature has nothing to do with contemporary soft, fresh cottage cheese, al-Hajjar’s definition may mean that either he mistook qarish for some other kind of cheese, or that historical and contemporary qarish have little to do with each other. The third possibility is that he actually meant mishsh, the “blue qarish cheese which was kept for so long that it cut off the mice’s tails with its burning sharpness and the power of its saltiness,” as an eleventh/seventeenth-century author defined it. Mishsh was, it seems, the staple fare of the Egyptian fellahs, who ate it with bread and green onions or leeks. Very probably, it was also this cheese which the European travelers observed being consumed in huge quantities by the local population. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that it was also because of this cheese that some Egyptians carried with them a cheese knife. Today mishsh is a traditional, soft, pickled, ripened cheese, often manufactured at home by country people. Of yellowish-brown color, sharp flavor, and high salt content, it is made of qarish cheese which, cut into cubes, is packed into an earthenware pot. The space between the pieces of cheese is filled either with salted milk or with salted buttermilk to which sesame seeds, fenugreek, pepper, anise seeds, caraway, cumin, fennel, cloves, nutmeg, thyme, or nigella seeds may be added. The jar, sealed with mud paste mixed with wheat chaff, is kept for about one year in a warm, sunny place to ripen. As there are no reasonable grounds to doubt the direct connection between contemporary and historical Egyptian mishsh, we can assume, with some probability, that the product manufactured today by the Egyptian fellahs basically does not differ from that produced by their medieval ancestors. Of the countless cheeses or cheese-like preparations mentioned in the medieval Arabic sources, one more product deserves attention. Although its popularity in Cairo itself has not been confirmed, the possibility that it actually was consumed by the Cairenes should not be ruled out. The product was called qanbaris and has been defined by Charles Perry as “thickened yoghurt” or “dried milk product used in cooking” Actually, defining qanbaris in more clear-cut terms is a thorny task, as the recipes we have at our disposal are not quite consistent. According to one of them, qanbaris à la Damascene was made by thickening the buttermilk (laban mukhid) by gentle heating (?). Cooled and put in jars, the resulting product could be stored and “used throughout the year.” According to another recipe, qanbaris was made of yoghurt (laban) coagulated by mixing with boiled vinegar. The coagulum was subsequently left undisturbed until the next day, when one was supposed to find it “as dry as qanbaris.” In the third recipe qanbaris is described as a product made of fresh milk (al-laban al-halib) which was boiled, poured into an earthenware jar, cooled, and mixed with an appropriate quantity of yoghurt. Then the jar was covered and left overnight in a warm place. The resulting substance, shaped “like a round loaf,” was strained in a cloth the next day, and thus “became qanbaris.” The product was then removed from the cloth and salted. It could be served seasoned with mace (bisbasa) and spices and mixed with cucumber and eggplant. Qanbaris, when mixed with egg, lemon and almonds, could be also used as filling for a two-crust fried pie the shell of which was made of sanbusik breads. Melted in green lemon juice and broth, it could also be sprinkled on a ready narjasiyya dish. Which of the above-discussed versions of qanbaris was made and eaten in Cairo is probably impossible to say. It may, however, be worth of note that the products have some common features with two contemporary Levantine cheeses. One of them is shanklish, a ripened, moldy, dry cheese made of defatted yoghurt coagulum formed into little balls and stored covered in ground thyme. The other is labneh (labna), a fat cheese made of strained yoghurt that, formed into balls, is dried in the sun and then stored, covered with olive oil, either in glazed earthenware pots or in glass jars. Interestingly, in Lebanon, where it is made, a version of the product is called labna qanbaris. It cannot be excluded that the medieval qanbaris, if available in Cairo at all, was brought to the city from the Levant and sold, together with other Syrian cheeses, in the cheese dealers’ shops near Bab Zuwayla.
By Paulina B. Lewicka in the book 'Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes-Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean', Brill, Leiden (the Netherlands) & Boston (U.S.A), 2011, p. 225-244. Edited and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa
Wow what a great blog, i really enjoyed reading this, good luck in your work. Middle Eastern Food
ReplyDelete