Tales of the Middle East
Meryle Evans reports.
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New York City—"Every destination has a culinary story, and the Middle East is no exception," says Ibrahim Barghout, general manager at the JW Marriott Dubai and proud proselytizer for his executive chef Ingo Maass' award-winning cookbook, New Arabian Cuisine. Anointed World's Best Foreign Cookbook at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Beijing last April, the handsome, profusely illustrated book puts a spin on classic Arabian dishes with over 120 recipes, ranging from hummus meringues to saffron flavored semolina pudding. Pictures and essays by photo-journalist Lutz Jakel capture the ambience of this rapidly developing Persian-Arabian Gulf oasis where desert sand and concrete converge.
Maass, a native of Germany, first came to Dubai as a 19 year old culinary school graduate in 1990 when there was "nothing but desert," then hopscotched the globe to cook in top-notch kitchens in France, Indonesia, Korea, and Algeria before returning to that increasingly cosmopolitan city in 2001.
During a visit to the United States earlier this year, Maass explained that many traditional recipes in the book were unchanged but presented in a novel way, like a saddle of lamb coated with dried fruits on tomato burghul, and marinated chicken breast with rose petals and honey on a puree of kamradiin (apricot paste), za'atar (an astringent herb related to thyme), and mint leaves. Other dishes take on a new flavor profile, such as orange flavored prawns on a flan of pine nuts with verjus jelly and a creamy olive oil dressing, and Dubai duck, laced with pomegranate syrup instead of hoisin sauce.
Convivial meals and sophisticated cuisine, even without spirits, are an Islamic heritage that can be traced back to the Middle Ages when the caliphs of Baghdad enjoyed sumptuous dinners prepared from recipes that were recorded and transcribed into manuscript cookbooks. "Islam has the richest medieval food literature in the world. There are more cookbooks in Arabic from before 1400 than in the rest of the world's languages put together," says culinary historian Charles Perry in his foreword to another new book, Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World, by professor Lilia Zaouali.
Zaouali's gastronomic explorations begin in cosmopolitan 10th century Baghdad, crossroads of Arab, Persian, Greek, Indian, and Turkish cultures, with added influences from China and north Africa. Interpreting the texts of four cookbooks, one from the 10th century, the other three from the 13th, the author intertwines historical events, such as the 12th century split of the Arab world into Eastern and Western empires, and the introduction of new ingredients and techniques—the progression from ancient porridges to pilaf and couscous, cultivation of new agricultural products like sugarcane, the ascendance of eggplant as a ubiquitous favorite, the use of vinegar and honey in sweet/sour dishes, and the importation of spices from the East.
Zaouali explains that "aromatic substances were the essence of the medieval Islamic kitchen: the fragrance of a dish announced its flavor and color…spices, herbs, leaves, seeds, berries, roots, resins, bark, and rosebuds were absolutely necessary…." Presentation was also important—for instance, fennel flower or nigella seeds were sprinkled on fresh cheese to create an impression of black dots on a white background.
With a far less developed cuisine in that era, Europeans, many of whom studied Arabic to read scientific texts, often borrowed ideas from the Muslim kitchen. Al sikbaj, the quintessential stewed meat and vinegar dish, served cold, was the root of the Spanish escabeche and probably of aspic.
Zoaualis selection of 143 original recipes, many with explanatory head notes, reveal similarities to modern dishes such as chicken with walnuts and pomegranate, puree of eggplant with yogurt, and a scented stuffing for roasted lamb, or combine traditional ingredients with more off-beat flavors such as chickpea puree with cinnamon and ginger. Most of the recipes lack cooking instructions and measurements but offer thought-provoking ideas for experimentation, while 31 updated recipes evoke the flavors of the Middle Ages for contemporary palates, among them a lemon chicken stew, Tunisian quince/beef tagine, and eggplant puree with vinegar and caraway.
Sections on cookware, utensils, and table manners enhance the text, and, as in New Arabian Cuisine, insightful stories capture the essence of daily life.
