Nawal Nasrallah - Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens_ Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's Tenth-century Baghdadi Cookbook-BRILL (2007)

introduction 3
press, they learnt of the presence of a third manuscript in Istanbul, 7
but it was too late for them to use it at that point.
On the discrepancy in authorship between the two manuscripts,
the editors opted to rule out Kuê9§jim because no early biographers
mentioned he had a cookbook. Therefore, they embraced al-Warr§q,
as the author/compiler of Kit§b al-•abÊÕ9 even though this decision
was also problematic because no information other than the book
exists about him.
The editors’ decision seems right even though Kuê9§jim’s name
is evidently associated with cookbooks and recipes. To begin with,
he rose to fame not as a poet, but as the court cook of the Hamdanid
king of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla (d. 967). People used to call
Sayf al-Dawla’s age al-ãir§z al-muù9ahhab ‘the gilded royal robe’ due
to the exceptionally distinguished talents he surrounded himself
with. Kuê9§jim al-ãabb§Õ9 ‘the cook’ was counted as one of them. 8
Kuê9§jim’s gastronomic poetry enjoyed a wide circulation in the
Abbasid literary circles. 9 In this cookbook alone, many of the food
poems are of Kuê9§jim’s composition.
As for recipes, Kit§b al-•abÊÕ9 does indeed contain several of his,
but unlike the poems, they pass uncredited. However, this can be
verified by comparing identical recipes in the Istanbul manuscript
Kit§b al-•ab§yiÕ9, where they, in addition to some new ones, are
attributed to him. 10 Besides, medieval sources that confirm he authored
cookbooks do indeed exist. The earliest is Sirr al-b$lamayn wa
Kaê9f m§ fÊ al-ò§rayn by Abå 0§mid al-ó9az§lÊ (d. 1111). 11 In his
section on bakers, cooks, and butchers, al-ó9az§lÊ recommends that
cooks consult Kuê9§jim’s cookbooks الطبائخ لكشاجم)‏ ‏.(كتب Another
source is fourteenth-century Faw§t al-Wafay§t by Ibn à9§kir al-KutubÊ.
12
7
It is an adapted and augmented edition executed in 1297. More on this in
the following section.
8
al--afadÊ (d. c. 1362) Al-W§fÊ bi ’l-Wafay§t (http://www.alwaraq.net) 2921.
9
A notable example is al-MasbådÊ’s famous passage on the Abbasid Caliph al-
MustakfÊ (d. 949) and the gastronomic poems recited to him. Several of them belong
to Kuê9§jim. See Muråj al-∙9ahab wa Mab§din al-Jawhar (http://www.alwaraq.net)
693-97. Arberry translated the passage in “A Baghdad Cookery Book,” 21–29. Al-
Warr§q includes some of these poems in his cookbook, which I translate afresh.
10
See Section IV. 3 below.
11
(http://www.alwaraq.net) 8.
12
(http://www.alwaraq.net) 456.