The Sultan's Feast: A Fifteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook (Bilingual Edition) - Softcover

Ibn Mubarak Shah; Edited; Translated And Introduced By Daniel L. Newman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 086356156X ISBN 13: 9780863561566

Publisher: Saqi Books, 2020

Synopsis

Winner of Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2021The Arabic culinary tradition burst onto the scene in the middle of the tenth century, when al-Warraq compiled a culinary treatise titled al-Kitab al-Tabikh, The Book of Dishes, containing over 600 recipes. However, it would take another three 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 nearly three thousand recipes. First published in the fifteenth century, The Sultan's Feast by the Egyptian Ibn Mubarak Shah features more than 330 recipes, from bread-making and savoury stews, to sweets, pickling and aromatics, as well as tips on a range of topics.

Available in English for the first time, this is the last known medieval Arabic cookery book. A bilingual reader that offers a unique and fascinating insight into the rich Arab culinary tradition in the Middle Ages.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel L. Newman is Head of the Arabic Studies Department, Professor of Arabic and Course Director of the MA in Arabic-English Translation and Interpreting at the University of Durham, UK. His publications include An Imam in Paris: Account of a Stay in France by An Egyptian Cleric (1826-1831), The Sultan's Sex Potions: Arab Aphrodisiacs in the Middle Ages, Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader and A to Z of Arabic-English-Arabic Translation (both with Ronak Husni).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT A COOK SHOULD KNOWA cook should:•avoid contact with dirt and filth since that will turn people away from his food.•take care of his personal hygiene, have an intelligent disposition, pared nails,•and clean clothes since these are attractive to people.•know that the best cooking pots to choose are those made out of soapstone,•followed by earthenware. Copper [containers] are bad and must be tinned.•choose wood that is dry and does not produce a lot of smoke because it is•damp. If you cook with it one day and it doesn’t have these features, then•choose it. I have cooked with dried date palm branches and found its smoke•to be highly fragrant.•use Andarani [rock] salt; if it is not freely available, take pure white salt,•devoid of dust and rock.•use the best vegetables and spices; he should find out which is the best of•things he has no knowledge about so he may increase his expertise.•know that fresh pepper is better than old pepper and the best ginger is that•powhich is not worm-eaten.•take great effort at cleaning spices and should only grind what he will use so•as not to dilute the strength of the spice.•wash the cooking vessels with hot clay, saltwort, dried rosewater, and•fumigate porcelain bowls with mastic and aloeswood before putting food in•them. After washing the pots, wipe them with rubbed (dried?) lemon or citron•leaves.For the pounding of meat, choose a mortar made out of stone, and for spices onemade of copper. When cooking meat, remove the scum, froth and any other dirt thatmay float on the surface after boiling. So, before cooking meat, wash it with hotwater and salt, and remove the glands, tendons, membranes and other waste that is notmeant to be eaten. Remove grilled meat when it still has moisture left in it. Whencooking lean meat, make sure to oil it before grilling.The cleavers and knives should be sharpened, and the onion knife should onlybe used to cut onions, nothing else. Maintain the khiwan1 with mustard seeds. Whenthere are several dishes, each pot must have its own ladle. Prepare hot water in a potin case it needs to be added to a dish during cooking. Do not grind all spices in amortar that contains traces of the liquid or sap of others.Do not ladle food from a pot until it has stopped boiling, and the flames andbubbling have died down. When the pot is smoking, throw in hazelnut husks. Smokewill also intensify if the meat is rotten. When preparing tripe, sprinkle lime on it andstrip it as this will expel the dirt.The cook should wash his hands before ladling food, and sanitize them withonions. If you want to overcook the meat, then put borax, wax, a bunch of watermelonveins -- or its peel -- in the pot.When cooking syrups2, prepare a receptacle with water, and use a clean whiterag to wipe down the edge and sides of the copper cauldron (dast) whenever youobserve a change [in colour]. This will prevent discolouration and burning. As forclay vessels (barniyya), these should be wiped with sesame oil3, while cleaning thearea where you sweets have been prepared. Then place on the ground so as to protectthem from ants.Do not prepare harisa4, ‘uruzziyya5 and farikiyya6 together, except if you usefat, the best of which is that of from a hogget.Garlic draws forth the essence of most oils of broths, seeds and vegetables,and increases their aromaticness. Pepper is used in most great dishes and seed dishes(mubazzarat). It is also used in dishes in order to reduce the flavour of cassia andgalangal; it has a powerful effect and enhances the smell of the food. It does notrequire a large quantity.As for ground gum Arabic, rice flour and chickpea flour, these thicken food.If you are cooking seeds, continue stirring until you lift the dish from the fire so thatthey don’t burn.Do not pour oil or anything like it into the pot before removing any froth orfoam. If there are some remnants of cooked meat [in the pot], apply some borax10 ordried ground melon peel. If the meat has changed (i.e. gone slightly off) and becomegreasy, take finely ground walnuts and knead them thoroughly into the meat, and thenthrow both into the pot. This takes away the rancidness and grease, while its oil willimprove the aroma of the meat. Do not put the lid on the pot until the flamesunderneath it have subsided and all that remains are smooth embers, and until it issmoking. Throw the salt in after the last ingredient that requires cooking, especiallycereals since salt slows down their cooking time. Vinegar should be poured on all ofthe ingredients, even cooked fava beans (baqilla’). If you make a cold dish with them,and pour some vinegar on them before eating, they become hard, as if they were raw.Alternatively, pour it [the vinegar] on at the time of eating.Those dishes that have too much liquid need to be dried out, by increasing theheat; those that are dry, require more hot water in a quantity to be decided by thecook. However, if water is added to harisa, rice, beans, certain types of seeds and anylegumes at the end of the cooking, then it will ruin them in all instances; the flavourswill disappear even if they were exquisite previously. That is why the cook shouldestimate the required quantity of water to be used in order to avoid having to add anyafterwards.The guiding principle of cooking is a sound composition of flavourings in adish to be cooked so that none dominates and there is an equilibrium of flavours.The best way to deal with cut onions in most dishes is to wash themthoroughly in water after cutting and then adding them to the pot. Also, wipe the knifethat is used only for onions or for garlic with high-quality olive oil.Make sure that the knives used for chopping are sturdy, whereas those forslicing should be thin and sharp, and fit for purpose.Aubergines and gourds must be put in water for a good hour after they are cutbefore they can be put in the pot [for cooking]. When aubergines are added to white[i.e. milk-based] dishes11 such as ma?ira12 or ?isrimiyya13, it is important to removethe outer peel and ends before throwing it in water and salt. The cook must use aseparate ladle for each dish, and not use the same ladle for different dishes.The best tharid14 is that which is placed in a sweet-and-sour broth, and madeof ruqaq15, jardaq16, kack17 or pure bread (khubz naqiyy). The quantity [of bread]should be sufficient to absorb the liquid. Push the centre [of the bread] down with ascoop and pour fat in. If the aruzziyya gets burnt, then add rue to it and the smell willgo. If Jerusalem cowpeas get burnt, fumigate them with a woollen cloth underneath toget rid of the smell.If you smell an offensive odour emanating from the cooking pots, then add awalnut, or two, leave for an hour, and they will dry out the stench. The proof is thatwhen you take the walnuts out, you won’t be able to bear the foul odour.If you soak a cloth in water and hang it in the pot, it will absorb salt, as willbran. Similarly, if you heat up a scoop until it grows red and then hang it in the pot, itwill also absorb its salt.18If you want to cook chickpeas quickly, add a bit of mustard to the pot and thenthey will cook quickly.If you want to keep meat tender for as long as you want, take meat from thethigh and remove the fat and bones; slice and salt well, and then leave overnight. Thefollowing morning, thoroughly clean the meat with water. Spread it out until it isdried, then rub with fat and place in a bustuqa19, and then pour fat on top until itcovers the meat and then put the lid on the bustuqa. Put the quantity you like and thentake it out when required. You will find that it is very hot without being salty. Thentake the meat, hang it from a fork lowered in a well, near the surface of the water,until it almost comes into contact with it. Take it out if you want to and you will findthat it is tender.If the meat has started to rot and its odour has changed [but] you still want tocook it, then hang two whole walnuts in the cooking pot after piercing the shells allthe way to the kernel. The bad smell will be absorbed by the nuts, the inside of whichwill smell more putrified than a cadaver. If you break an egg inside the pot, the putridsmell will also disappear. If a small quantity of fenugreek is boiled with the meat,after the water is removed and fresh water added, the smell of putrefaction will alsodisappear. The flavour will be such that it is impossible to tell whether the meat wasrotten or fresh.If the meat smells off, cut it up and put it in a pot with ground hazelnuts,which will remove the odour.If you want food to cook quickly, take the peel of green melon, dry it,pulverize it and then keep. If you need to cook food quickly, just add a little bit of themelon grounds.If you do not want garlic to go off, then burn the spathes that are on it, and itwill keep until you want it, and will not shrink or become spoilt.If you want to make sure that no bones remain in a Nile carp, then take betelnut20, and pound. Split the carp on each side and insert the crushed betel. Whengrilling the fish, all the bones will fall apart.If at any point you want to boil fava beans, wild mustard21, cabbage or greenchard, then add a little of natron in the pot with the water. Boil the water until thenatron breaks up and then put the desired ingredient(s) inside the pot. Once you throwthem in the pot with boiling water do not cover with a lid since that would makeeverything inside turn yellow. Make sure not to overcook the ingredients, but to takethem out [of the pot] while they still retain their firmness, as this is better.If you boil spinach, wash it with water and place in a pot, but do not add anywater, as the vegetable will release a great deal of liquid when it is heated by fire.Similarly, when cooking Jew’s mallow (mulukhiyya), do not put a lid on thepot or put over a blazing flame, and do not leave on the fire until it is overcooked.If you want to cook seeds, such as lentils, peas, chickling vetch, broad beans,or chickpeas, do not buy them mashed from the market. Rather, buy all of them wholeand then mash and sieve them yourself at home. Add the required quantity of saffronand then let them dry. If you then want to cook some of it, boil water with a little bitof salt. Once it starts boiling, take it off the fire and then add any of aforementionedseeds that you like – for each qada? take one and a half ghamras. When the seeds arecooked, add the other flavourings while stirring well as this will prevent the food fromburning.

Edition details

• Publisher: Saqi Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 086356156X
• ISBN 13: 9780863561566
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Daniel L. Newman