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

introduction 35
was sometimes even more affordable than cooking at home, due to
fuel costs. 97 This might explain why it was not deemed fit for high-class
people to patronize such places. Caliph al-Maamån (d. 813) once went
incognito with friends to a cookshop specialized in serving jåù9§ba. 98
When he was reminded that the dish was ãab§m al-b§mma ‘food for
commoners,’ he said, “The commoners drink cold water like we do.
Should we abandon it for them?” 99 Generally, cooked foods available
in the markets were regarded as inferior in quality to homemade
varieties, even though they looked more tempting. An attractive but
deceitful person was usually compared to f§låù9aj al-såq. 100 All the same,
ready-cooked foods were acceptable options to feed surprise guests.
Describing a dish of market-roasted meat ê9iw§a såqÊ, a poet says,
When unexpectedly at dinnertime a guest came by,
I bought him meat, sweet and tender, roasted by son of a bee. 101
It goes without saying that it was the commoners who suffered most
in times of hardships. The medieval historian, al-∙9ahabÊ, movingly
describes how during the famine of Baghdad in the year 944, women
went out into the streets in groups of tens or twenties crying out, al-jåb!
al-jåb! (hunger hunger) and fell to the ground one after the other and
died. 102
VII. The Abbasid Baghdadi Cuisine as Manifested in Kit§b al-•abÊÕ9
The key to good cooking was freshness of ingredients and hygiene.
Al-Warr§q made a point of emphasizing this early on in his book.
He asserted that what elevated a dish to the high cuisine status was
not the expensive ingredients as much as the utmost care taken to
clean the food and the receptacles and tools used in handling it. Al-
97
See, for instance, Shirley Guthrie, Arab Women in the Middle Ages: Private Lives
and Public Roles (London: Saqi Books, 2001) 94, 96.
98
It is meat roasted in the tannår, suspended on a pan of sweet bread-pudding
(recipes in Chapter 92).
99
Ibn 0amdån, Al-Taù9kira al-0amdåniyya (http://www.alwaraq.net) 1103.
100
F§låù9aj ‘condensed translucent pudding,’ purchased from the market. See
al-ø9ab§libÊ Al-Tamï9Êl wa ’l-Muȧ'ara (http://www.alwaraq.net) 46.
101
‏,طرأ طارىء عند العشاء فجئته بقرص عضيض من شواء ابن زنبور
al-ø9ab§libÊ YatÊmat al-Dahr fÊ à9ubr§a Ahl al-bAßr (http://www.alwaraq.net) 537. My
translation.
102
Al-bIbar fÊ ö9abar man ó9abar (http://www.alwaraq.net) 133.