MEDIEVAL CAIRO - FOOD AND FOODWAYS - FISH

THE CAIRENE MENU: INGREDIENTS, PRODUCTS AND PREPARATIONS

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.

4. Fish

Not surprisingly, aquatic animals were not typical fare of the desert Arabs and the fact that the Sunna of the Prophet does not even mention the consumption of fish is a natural consequence of the lack of interest within Muhammad’s milieu in this kind of food. Fish dishes were not among the favorite foods in the Arabian Nights either, even though the markets of Baghdad and Cairo, unlike those of Mecca and Medina, abounded in fish. Both the Baghdadis and Cairenes ate a lot of it; nevertheless, fish dishes are almost entirely ignored in the Nights, as the rich did not enjoy them, and the poor did not crave them. Even Judar, the fictitious fisherman of Cairo, never eats fish nor feeds it to his family. Rather, he sells his daily catch and spends the earnings on meat and vegetables. Apparently, fish dishes were not particularly esteemed in the Arabic-Islamic culinary repertoire of the Middle Ages. Those who had a choice would rather not go for it. As historical rumor has it, caliph Harun ar-Rashid was once served an extremely refined preparation made of over 150 fish tongues created in the shape of a fish. Evidently unwilling to eat it, the caliph tried, however, to find some good excuse for his refusal. The first thing which came to his mind was to accuse his host (and, at the same time, his brother) of being profligate. Such accusation, in turn, enabled him to order his own servant to go to the street and press the dish, together with the precious bowl on which it was presented, into the hands of a passer-by. As claims to frugality or austerity laid by Harun ar-Rashid cannot be taken too seriously, one is entitled to presume that it was the fish ingredient rather than the presumed 1,000 dirhams paid for it, that made a big spender like Harun ar-Rashid successfully avoid eating the dish.

As for the rulers residing in Cairo, this kind of sophistication was not generally their style. But it is impossible to say whether they ate fish at all. The records referring to fish consumption in the context of the Cairene ruling elites are almost nonexistent—all we know is that the Fatimids used to distribute packs of fish and bowls of striped mullet on Christmas Day among their subjects, and that in Mamluk times fish was served, among other foods, at the banquet held to celebrate the inauguration of sultan Barquq’s madrasa in 788/1386.  All in all, as far as the royal menus are concerned, the non-fiction sources seem to confirm what can be inferred from the Arabian Nights: for some reason, fish did not please the palates of the ruling elites of the Arabic-Islamic world. Interestingly, in the medical context, fish was generally considered beneficial.
Nevertheless, fish, both fresh and salted, was eaten in Egypt in quantities huge enough to make taxes imposed on fisheries and fish sale a source of the considerable income for the state. The share of fish in the Cairenes’ diet, however, varied according to the class: while it was probably an occasional element of the menu for the well-to-do, for the poor it constituted, to use the dieticians’ vocabulary, the main source of proteins and fats. One fourth/tenth-century Syrian visitor to Egypt tried to convince his readers that the Egyptians’ fondness for fish referred, above all, to fish heads which the Egyptians liked so much that “if they saw a Syrian buying a fish they would follow him, and if he threw the fish’s head out, they would collect it.” Obviously enough, the record, apparently presenting a hearsay or an account of the local junkmen’s diet, should not be taken too seriously. Generally, there was no need to follow a Syrian in order to collect fish heads—the Nile waters and the salt Delta lakes on the Mediterranean coast were generous enough to provide cheap fish for everybody. The Mediterranean species, brought by camel or boat from Damietta, Burullus, Tinnis, Nastaru, and the Alexandria area, as well as the Nile catch, were sold in the Fishermen Market in al-Fustat and the Fish Market in Cairo. Since fish, by nature, is an extremely local ingredient, any attempt to discuss the Egyptian species, if undertaken by the European travelers, was doomed to fail. Mikolaj Radziwill was greatly surprised at the sight of local fishermen who, diving in the Nile’s turbid waters, caught fish with their hands and usually emerged “with one piece in each hand and the third one in their mouth.” Nevertheless, he managed to note that the fishes “are large ... the most popular ones are similar to burbot but larger; the others are like salmon; and there is also some big white fish.  All fishes from this river are very tasteful and fat, though unhealthy, since the bed of Nilus is of clay, and not of stone.” Almost a century later father Antonius Gonzales made an effort to describe both the Mediterranean and the Nile fish in a more orderly and comprehensive way, devoting an entire chapter of his travel account to the local aquatic animals. Apart from whales, dolphins, and swordfish, the species identified by Gonzales included tuna fish, which he ate in Jerusalem; sole, which he saw in the Jaffa port; Nile tilapia, which was delicious when roasted or fried; smoked “herring,” the wonderful taste of which was unequaled even by what was made by the Dutch; and equally delicious Nile “sardines,” which were fried ungutted.  Finally, there was also eel which, caught in Damietta, was salted and exported in barrels to other countries. Naturally enough, the task of registering and classifying species caught by Egyptian fishermen was much easier for the Arab-speaking authors. Despite the fact that ichthyology could not have been a popularly comprehended or appreciated science, some of them, such as the famous Maghrebian geographer Abu Abd Allah al-Idrisi, or the equally famous Yaqut, managed to assemble impressive collections of fish names. Yet such lists, unique as they are, are not of much help in defining the particular items eaten by the local population and, as such, are of little use from the food historian’s point of view. As far as the names of edible fish are concerned, the most informative is probably the Delectable War. Among dozens of personified edible goods mentioned in the work, about thirty varieties of fish appear. The list includes species such as ray (Egyptian variety of salmon), labis (Labeo niloticus, a variety of carp), tun (tuna fish), buri (striped or gray mullet, Mugil cephalus), bulti (Tilapia nilotica), hut (a name applied primarily to very large fishes and to cetaceans), qarmut (Clarias anguillaris, a variety of catfish), qishr bayad (Lates niloticus, Nile perch), absariyya (sardines), bunni (Barbus bynni, the Nile barbel), ra'ad (electric ray), laj, tubar, and, somewhat unexpectedly, also varieties imported from abroad, such as Eufrates fish, fish from Homs, tabari fish, or fish from al-Barada river.
Despite the fact that most of the medieval Arabic-Islamic recipes do not specify the variety of fish they call for, the data referring to the consumption of some of these species in Cairo can be identified. Those few which appear in the cookery books include buri (striped mullet), which was caught in the salt lakes of the Mediterranean coast and from which spicy and intensively aromatic “shrouded buri” (buri mukaffan) was made; zumakh, from which a fish dish which “sold well in the market” was prepared;and samak lujji (“deep-water fish”) which, stuffed with salt and fried in vinegar, oil and spices, “kept well in travel.” Furthermore, a recipe of Iraqi origin copied by an Egyptian compiler calls for shabbut (Barbus grypus Heckel, a large Iraqi carp).  In Kanz, apart from labis, or carp, samak dibb (D-B) is mentioned, apparently some salt-fermented fish of which “royal Alexandrian fish paste” was made. In the same book there appear absariyya fishes, which are called for in the recipe for absariyya mukaffana (“shrouded absariyya”), a cold, fragrant preparation made of fried ungutted fish. The absariyya, although literally meaning “sardines,” were not exactly what is commonly understood by that name, that is any small oily fish related to herring and belonging to highly complex Clupeidae family. Nor were they young pilchards, which is another contemporary meaning of the name “sardines.” Egyptian medieval absariyya seem to have designated any juvenile Nile fish caught in the autumn, when the Nile floodwater receded from the fields back to the river bed. The fish, whose species apparently included Nile tilapia (bulti), Nile salmon (ray), and Nile barbel (bunni) were caught when about one-finger long and were fried ungutted. In fact, late autumn seems to have been the season for the Nile fish. After the mature specimen had been joined by those recently hatched, the fish became so plentiful that it could be easily taken from the water by hand. Or, still easier, by simple “harvesting” those which were trapped in the muddy fields after the floodwater had receded. In the winter and early spring sea fish prevailed in the Cairo markets. Even with the abundance and variety of local species, fish was also brought to Cairo from abroad, as suggested in the Delectable War. Foreign species, if indeed imported to Cairo, had to be either salted and stone-dried, or salt-fermented, like “sir from Socotra,” which is called for in a recipe included in one of the Cairene cookery books. Because of possible changes over the last 500–1,000 years in the aquatic fauna and in the Arabic nomenclature referring to it, it is sometimes impossible to identify names used in the medieval Arab literature.The unclear and sometimes inconsistent nature of existing written records makes such a task even more difficult. Such is, for example, the case of buri, a name generally known to designate “striped mullet.”  Indeed, buri as mentioned in the medieval recipes for buri mukaffan, or as distributed by the Fatimids on Christmas Day, could be striped mullet. But buri might also have meant something else. Ibn Bassam uses it to denote various species of fish, such as Sh-Sh-F, laj, and tubar that, ungutted and with their gills stuffed with salt, were kept in coarsely ground salt. Salt was shaken off from the gills before weighting the fish for the customer and, upon his request, fish could be scaled and gutted. Ibn Bassam’s remarks suggest that the term buri could in fact be any salt-preserved, unfermented fish, brought to Cairo from the fisheries of the northern Delta, where buri was caught, and unloaded on Sahil al-Buri, or “Harbor of Buri” which occupied a fragment of the Nile shore in al-Fustat. In most of recipes for fish dishes, the species did not really matter and was usually unspecified: most of the techniques, ingredients, stuffings, and sauces were universal and meant for fish. What the recipes do mention relatively frequently, and what apparently mattered more then species, was if the fish was salted (malih, mamluh) or fresh (tari).

In cooked preparations, fish could be fried in an iron pan (miqla hadid lis-samak), deepfried in the hajin-type of pan, or roasted in the tannur- or furn-type oven. The ways of preparing dishes of fresh versus those using salted fish did not differ much, except that salted fish might sometimes have required soaking in order to remove the salt. Salted fish, unlike salt-fermented fish, but similarly to fresh fish, was prepared for consumption by cooking over fire. The simplest of such preparations were probably those named after meat dishes or after the most characteristic ingredient: fish à la sikbaj, fish à la zirbaj, fish à la summaqiyya, à la kuzbariyya, etc.  The recipe for fish which was to be made à la sikbaj, for example, recommended frying flourcoated pieces of fish in sesame oil. When done, the fish was put in a sauce prepared of onions fried in sesame oil, pepper, spices, saffron, vinegar, and honey. But not all of the fried or roasted fish preparations were so simple. A majority of them, particularly those which required stuffing or preparing a sophisticated sauce, demanded more effort. Usually, fish dishes were rather strongly spiced and aromatized. The standard set of ingredients to be applied by the street fish fryers included pepper, caraway, coriander, garlic, sumac, as well as good oil, tahina, lemon juice, parsley, and crushed roasted Syrian walnuts. These items were also the basic ingredients of fish stuffings and sauces. To this composition almonds (though not as often as walnuts), thyme, salt, cinnamon, mint, saffron, and vinegar could be added.  Mustard seeds and ginger were sometimes called for, too. Onions were used, but much less often than garlic. Unlike most meat dishes, fish recipes rarely called for cereals, vegetables or fruits. The concept of counteracting salt with sugar, applied by the Middle Eastern cooks in meat preparations, was not generally followed in fish dishes. Nevertheless honey, raisins, and molasses are called for in a few otherwise atypical recipes for salted fish. Interestingly, there is no evidence that contemporary Egyptian (or, broader, Levantine) avoidance of mixing fish and milk products in one meal was observed in the medieval Middle East.  This combination (considered unhealthy today) appears in a number of old Arabic-Islamic recipes where fish and yoghurt are put together. The same concerns modern Egyptian belief that fish  with eggs causes severe stomach problems. Cooked fish preparations could, it seems, be eaten both warm and cold. Of the latter, fish à la mukaffan was probably the most distinctive: it was fried and macerated in a marinade of vinegar, parsley, mint, celery, dried rosebuds (zirr ward), cardamom, spikenard, cloves, tahina, saffron, and onions. Interestingly, fish could also be prepared so as to withstand a long journey. The recipe for such a preparation recommended: Take fresh fish, clean it of scales and bones, split its belly, and remove what is inside. Wash the fish well and sprinkle it with salt. Leave it in salt for some time, and then put it on a large matt [lit. “basket”].  Put another matt over the fish. Put everything on a flat stone, and another stone over the upper matt, and leave it like that until the fish’s juices go out. Cut the fish into small pieces and sprinkle good flour on it. Set a deep pan over the fire and put sesame oil in it, or any good oil you choose to deep-fry fish in it. Fry the fish thoroughly, so that no water is left in it. Take wine vinegar, toasted coriander, toasted caraway, and all other spices, and saffron, and shake the mixture.  Put the fried fish in the mixture so that the fish is all submerged. Leave it in a glass container or a pickling jar, and pour the vinegar over it, and leave it for as long as you need, for it stays for days and does not go bad. And there are people who travel with it to distant places, and the fish does not go bad. The spicy, nice-smelling, cooked fish dishes constituted only a part of the fish menu available to Cairenes. The other part of it was made up by dishes prepared of salt-fermented, or pickled fish. The two differed from each other in consistency, texture, taste, smell, and the way they were consumed. Actually, the exact meaning of medieval fish pickles’ names has been lost and an attempt to define features of particular preparations can be undertaken today only by comparing them with contemporary food items.

After all, authors of historical accounts were not food technologists and, as such, were not fully informed about the details related to the pickled fish production. However, as using the new to define the old cannot produce perfect results, some subtle differences between particular products of the medieval Egyptian fish fermenting industry have to remain unclear. Most probably, ancient Egyptians were the first to both cure fish with salt and to prepare fish pickles. But pickling fish was by no means an exclusive specialty of the Nile valley: all the ancient and post-ancient world, from Gibraltar to Vietnam, salted and fermented fish. Roman salsamenta and garum, Egyptian fish mawalih, as well as Asian fermented fish sauces, were all products of a similar idea to salt fish and let it ripen. “Ripe” here means “fermented” and “fermented” means “pungent.”

Generally, the thin line between “pungent” and “decomposed” made the natural limits of what the nostrils, palates, and stomachs could stand as far as fish preserving was concerned. What was below the line was tabooed for many, though not for all. Scandinavians for example, renowned for their peculiar predilection for offensively smelling fish, used to bury salmon and herring in the ground for days or months. The medieval Egyptians would rather not do such things. Their Mediterranean tastes, which would appreciate the sharp aroma and acidic flavor of fermented fish, would not accept rottenness in fish. The Arabic-Islamic cooks might have had their cures for bad smelling meat; bad smelling fish, however, was to be unconditionally thrown away on the rubbish heaps outside the town. Remarkably enough, pickled fish was one of the cheapest food items which could be purchased in medieval Egyptian markets.  As two Arab travelers observed in the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth centuries, sir and sahna were what the common Egyptians and Cairenes fed on. These observations, noted down by an Iraqi and a Maghrebian, suggest that the two food articles were not as common in the home country of either of them. Of the two products sahna is probably easier to define: it was a paste made of sir which was minced, mixed with spices, oil, and salt and left to macerate for a week or more. For a better-off consumer the sahna would be prepared in quite a refined form. As for sir itself, or the product of which the fish paste was made, Charles Perry suggests it had to be unsalted, dried, and rock-hard fish, “probably available in the markets in a ready-ground form.” His conclusion is apparently based on a medieval Egyptian recipe (sir is not to be found in the Iraqi ones) in which sir mathun, or ground sir, is called for. Moreover, another recipe, which Perry did not consider and which recommends to “take sir, dissolve it in the urn and leave it for three or two days until it softens,” may be used to confirm that sir was dried fish. But there are also recipes which exclude such a possibility, if only because they provide evidence that sir was pickled in brine and that it could be chopped without having been left for days in order to soften. sir preparations as described in Wusla and Kanz are made of sir which is served with “a little of its brine, green lemon juice, oil, za'tar and flesh of lemon,” or which is cut into small pieces and mixed with a sauce made of  “oil, green lemon juice, dry za'tar, chopped parsley, mint, rue, and a little bit of pounded garlic.” Also according to the data provided by Ibn Bassam, sir, salted and kept in brine, had little to do with unsalted, dried fish. That sir was not stone-dried fish, but fish salted and brined, is confirmed by an-Nuwayri and al-Maqrizi. While commenting on the taxes imposed on Egyptian fisheries, the latter reports that “when the Nile recedes, and the water goes back from the fields to the river ...the nets are set and, while the water draws off, the fish come, carried by the running water. The nets stop them from flowing [further down], so they gather in the nets. Then they are taken ashore, put on mats, salted, and then put in urns. As soon as the contents of the urns becomes ripe, it is sold. It is called muluha and sir, and is made only of fishes which are a finger-long, and no others.”An-Nuwayri, from whom al-Maqrizi apparently copied a part of his account, defines also the species which were used for the purpose. These were Nile tilapia (bulti), Nile salmon (ray), Nile barbel (bunni), and Synodontis schall (shal), the latter being the length of the spam. While explaining the nature of sir, al-Maqrizi uses the term muluha. Judging upon the context in which it appears, it is difficult to gather whether the two terms were synonymous or designated two different things.

Literally, muluha means “saltiness.” The term, when referred to fish macerated in salt in jars, connotes the concentrated salty brine rather than the fish itself. But medieval authors used other terms to designate such a brine: it is called “broth [maraqa] of sir” in one source, while in another it is mentioned as “water of the salt fish” or “sharp sauce [murri] which is taken from sir.”In theory, muluha could also be a kind of Arabic-Islamic equivalent of garum, the sauce which the Romans drained from the salt-fermented fish mush. Garum, called also liquamen, was the Romans’ great gastronomic passion, and their favorite, universal, all-dish seasoning which they valued enormously. But, somewhat paradoxically, the fermented fish sauce which the Romans could not live without was the substance which any self-respecting Cairenes would never season their food with. In the Arabic-Islamic historical records muluha as a food item is rarely referred to. Few as they are, these references nevertheless prove suggestive. While instructing market inspectors that “the fish dealers are forbidden to take muluha from the urn and put it on the weight together with its brine,” Ibn Bassam made it clear that the term designated salted fish itself. Whether muluha was identical with sir, or varied from it in details resulting from some differences in the production process, is, however, difficult to define. Whatever it was, muluha seemed to invoke negative connotations. Presumably because of its relatively offensive smell and sight, possibly because of its association with the religiously motivated diet of the Copts, it was ascribed to those who deserved particular contempt and repugnance. Such was the case of four men and a woman who were reportedly caught in a Cairene garden while disregarding the fast of Ramadan. To stress the particularly contemptible nature of their offense, it was said that the food they dared to eat on a Ramadan day was muluha. Even more condemnable was the case of Sharaf ad-Din an-Nashw, the popularly hated inspector of an-Nasir Muhammad’s private treasury and a convert from Christianity in whose pantries undisputable proof of guilt was said to have been found: 200 containers of muluha, significant reserve of pig’s meat, and 4,000 jugs of wine, apart from a huge amount of expensive textiles and garments. Such a collection would not make much sense to demonstrate its owner’s dishonest amassing of fortune. If used to prove his insincere intention while converting to Islam, however, it was a perfect corpus delicti, particularly when coupled with three Turkish mamluks whom an-Nashw had allegedly castrated and who were also reported to have been found (one alive and two dead) in the pantries. Unlike sir, the name of which seems to have at some point disappeared from the local culinary terminology, muluha survives until the present. The contemporary product, made in some parts of Egypt and the Sudan, is a salt-fermented fish, the salting process of which is carried out in two stages. First, freshly caught fish is placed in alternative layers with granular salt in a wicker bag to facilitate drainage of liquids. Then, after the liquid is separated, the dry fish is transferred to another container and again arranged in alternating layers with granular salt. Muluha becomes ripe after ca. 120 days. Contemporary muluha may in fact be closely related to medieval muluha or sir, provided that medieval process of curing fish with salt on mats (as described by an-Nuwayri and al-Maqrizi) was meant to extract water and did not involve sun-fermenting of fish. Another name of medieval salt-fermented fish product used in contemporary Egyptian vocabulary is fisikh, well-known for its distinctive, sharp, penetrating odor and strong, salty, rather acidic taste. As in the case of muluha, there are certain differences between the present-day method of processing fisikh and the method of its production as described in historical sources. If we are to believe the eleventh/seventeenth-century author ash-Shirbini, the historical fisikh was made of striped mullet and of tubar, by pressing fish tightly together after each of them had been covered with salt. After the fish had macerated, the water was drained and the dry fish was again salted and pressed, probably by putting suitable weights on the top. Ash-Shirbini also described how fisikh was eaten by “the villagers and other people”: “they take a fish, split its belly, and a man or a woman takes it in his left hand, or in both hands, squeezes lemon on it and tears out bite after bite ... with each bite taking a morsel of bread...His mouth and hands become dirty, and the smell disgusting.” The processing of fisikh, as described by ash-Shirbini, was based on two stages of salting interrupted by drainage of the fish’s liquids. As such, the method seems to have been more similar to contemporary muluha production than to contemporary fisikh making. Today, as before, the most appreciated fisikh in Egypt (though not by all Egyptians) is made of whole striped mullet (buri), the best of which still comes from Damietta. The process of preparation involves fermenting the fish in the sun for one or two days, then dry-salting it in barrels. The latter operation requires stuffing the gills and placing the fish in layers alternating with granular salt (that is the way the Roman salsamentum was also made) and pressing down by placing weights on the top. After adding saturated brine, the fish is allowed to cure for a period ranging from one week to two months. Before consumption, the fish is gutted, cut into fillets, and seasoned with oil, lemon, chopped onions, and parsley. The fundamental technological differences between the contemporary fisikh processing and the method described by ash-Shirbini are that the historical fisikh-making did not involve pre-fermenting the fish in the sun and that the contemporary method of production does not require the drainage of liquids.
The old subtle differences between sir, muluha, and fisikh are difficult to define today. All that can be said in this regard is that the differences were related to the technological details applied in the methods of processing particular products and to the kind of fish. sir/muluha was made in Cairo of little “sardines” caught in the Nile, while fisikh, made of striped mullet or tubar, which were caught in the salt lakes on the Mediterranean coast, was brought to Cairo from Tinnis or Damietta. Another mysterious name related to salt-fermented fish is tirrikh. According to A.J. Arberry, in Arabic the name tirrikh was applied to a fish caught in Lake Van in Armenia. Indeed, a number of medieval Arab authors mentioned tirrikh in this geographic context. Nawal Nasrallah confirms it was caught in Lake Van (Arjish) and maintains it was a span long fish which was “brought to Baghdad already salted and dried.” The author of the Delectable War suggests that tirrikh was, like fisikh, imported to Cairo from Tinnis or Damietta, which of course does not exclude its possible Armenian origin. Judging from the recipes, tirrikh could be whole, unscaled, ungutted, and, probably, a rather small fish. Due to the longdistance transport to which it was subjected, it also had to be particularly well preserved. Apparently, a rather popular way of preparing tirrikh was to fry them in sesame oil and, after cleaning the fish of bones, heads and tails, break eggs on them in order to make a rich omelette. Today, the name tirrikh is still used in the Arab world, at least in the Gulf area. Its preparation, limited almost exclusively to house production, consists in washing fish, which are Indian oil sardines, draining them and mixing with salt, cumin, and red chillies (this ingredient, originating in South America, was not known in the eastern hemisphere of the Middle Ages). The mixture is then put into a container and kept in sunlight for about one week. Just before consumption, the tirrikh is diluted with water and eaten with bread, spring onions, and radish leaves. The way tirrikh is prepared in the Gulf area differs from what is recommended in the medieval Arabic recipes. Nevertheless, one cannot exclude the possibility that the contemporary tirrikh may bear some resemblance to the tirrikh of the past. Apart from the specialties already discussed, there were two other salted preparations made of edibles of aquatic animal origin that the people of Cairo consumed: one was dillinas, the other one baTarikh. Like Sir and sahna, both were known as, above all, the staple foods of the common people.  Dillinas, a small crustacean of the mollusks family, was famous for having been forbidden, as a representative of Biblical fish with no scales, by the caliph al-Hakim. All we know about the consumption of dillinas is that they were salty, and were served with oil and lemon juice. As for batarikh, a traditional Mediterranean delicacy of cured fish roe, known today as botargo or bottarga, its production was concentrated on the sea coast of the northern Delta. From there the product was brought to Cairo where it was sold by retailers who also had salty fisikh on their offer. There are not too many clues regarding the way batarikh was prepared in medieval Egypt. Nowadays, the preparation of Egyptian batarikh, which is made of striped mullet’s (buri) roe, involves washing it, salting, pressing in layers between wooden boards, and drying. Dried roe has a form of amber-colored rectangular bars, 10–15 cm long and 2–3 cm wide. Since the way the batarikh is prepared today does not differ much from the way the roe was prepared in ancient Egypt, it is quite probable that batarikh-makers of the Middle Ages used similar technology. At the same time, however, there are records which suggest that the term batarikh might designate not only botargo, but also a product more akin to caviar, viz. salted (but not pressed or dried) fish roe. One such piece of evidence was recorded in a Hebrew letter belonging to the set of Geniza documents. It indicates that roe could be preserved or kept in salted fish from which it was “not taken out.”Another record, which is included in a late medieval Arabic recipe for a fish dish called samak mukaffan, confirms the practice of keeping fish roe this way. In this recipe, the roe (batarikh) is taken out of the salted fish (samak al-batarikh) and put in a separate vessel. However interesting these two records are, they are not clear enough to be used as the basis for making definite statements regarding the nature of medieval Egyptian batarikh. It is difficult to confirm whether either dillinas or fish roe were consumed by the higher orders of the Cairene society in the Middle Ages. The medieval cookery books contain only one recipe for a dish which calls for batarikh. In this recipe, already mentioned above, the roe is taken out of the salted fish, and put in a vessel with oil. Then the fish itself, soaked for some time and then washed, is put in a vessel (probably over the batarikh) which is then placed in the furn oven. After the contents is well done, it is taken out and cooled down. Then the sauce of onions, spices, tahina, and vinegar is cooked, cooled, and poured over the fish. According to an eleventh/seventeenth-century source, batarikh was eaten with vinegar, oil and, possibly, also with chopped garlic and onions, while today it is eaten by small fine slices with bread and a drop of lemon juice.

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. 209-225. Edited and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa