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The Culinary Crescent A History of Middle Eastern Cuisine Peter Heine Full Chapters Included

The Culinary Crescent by Peter Heine explores the rich history and cultural significance of Middle Eastern cuisine, detailing its evolution and the influence of various empires. The book also discusses dietary laws in Islam, such as the prohibition of pork and alcohol, while providing over a hundred recipes that reflect both traditional and modern practices. Heine's work highlights the globalization of Middle Eastern food and its integration into Western culinary culture.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
28 views90 pages

The Culinary Crescent A History of Middle Eastern Cuisine Peter Heine Full Chapters Included

The Culinary Crescent by Peter Heine explores the rich history and cultural significance of Middle Eastern cuisine, detailing its evolution and the influence of various empires. The book also discusses dietary laws in Islam, such as the prohibition of pork and alcohol, while providing over a hundred recipes that reflect both traditional and modern practices. Heine's work highlights the globalization of Middle Eastern food and its integration into Western culinary culture.

Uploaded by

kamalalac4261
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Peter Heine

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Falafel, hummus and doner kebabs; couscous, stuffed vine leaves and
marzipan – the delicacies of the Middle East have long since found
their way onto menus in the West, while spices such as cloves,
cardamom, saffron and cinnamon that were once beyond most
people’s means are today familiar ingredients in every well-
appointed kitchen. But how much do we really know about Middle
Eastern cuisine?
In this book, the renowned Islamic scholar Peter Heine explains,
among other things, why Muslims never eat pork, but are not
infrequently partial to a glass of red wine. He goes on to describe the
kinds of dishes that were prepared in the Thousand and One
Saucepans of the Ummayads, Abbasids, Ottomans, Safavids and
Mughals and how almsgiving came to be considered part of good
etiquette at table. The author recounts tales of the great Middle
Eastern chefs and cooks, both male and female, of the distribution of
different vegetables and fruit across the region and the routes by
which they were brought to Europe, and of how the supply of halal
produce worldwide has now become a multi-million pound
industry.
Since Heine is also an avid gourmet, this unique cultural history is
garnished with over a hundred recipes, including everyday dishes for
the modern kitchen, classic preparations from the annals of Mughal
and Abbasid cookery, and lavish confections that conjure up the
culinary delights of Paradise.
Peter Heine
THE CULINARY
CRESCENT
A History of
Middle Eastern Cuisine

Translated by Peter Lewis


First published in English in 2018 by Gingko Library
4 Molasses Row
London SW11 3UX

First published in German as Köstlicher Orient by Peter


Heine, © 2016 Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin

English language translation copyright © Peter Lewis 2018

Cover illustration: Julie August from a photo of an Uzbek


mosaic © Konstantin Kalishko / depositphotos

The rights of the author has been asserted in accordance


with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotation in a review,


no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information
storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for the book is available from the


British Library.

ISBN 978–1–909942–25–7
eISBN978–1–909942–26–4

Layout by Denise Sterr

Typeset by Mitchell Onuorah in Minion Pro and Gill Sans

Printed in Spain

www.gingko.org.uk
@gingkolibrary
Prologue

No Pork, no Alcohol
Why no pork?
Ritual slaughter
The proscription against alcohol
Blood
Yet more rules
Preferred dishes
The culinary promises of Paradise
Rules for fasting and meals for religious festivals
Secular festivals
Religious minorities in Islamic societies

A Thousand and One Saucepans – Cooking Among the


High and Mighty
Hospitality
The Umayyads
The Abbasids
The Ottomans
The Safavids
The Mughal emperors

Cookbooks and Kitchen Practices


Professional chefs
Modern professional chefs
Amateur cooks
Cookbooks
Arab cuisine
Ottoman cuisine
Persian cuisine
Mughal cuisine
Modern cookbooks

Itinerant Ingredients – The Flow of Commodities to and


from the East
From the Far East and the West to the Islamic world
Grains
Sugar cane
Citrus fruits
Bananas
Water melons
Spinach
Aubergines
From the Middle East to Europe
Alcohol
Apricots
Coffee
Marzipan
Saffron
Sorbets

Tomatoes and Peppers – Western Influences on


Middle Eastern Cooking
Shifts in international trade
American plants in the cuisines of the East
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Peppers/chillies
Maize (Sweetcorn)
Jerusalem artichokes
Cacao
Tea

Doner Kebabs and Falafels – Middle Eastern Cuisine in


Europe
Doners and falafels
Poultry
Blancmange
Rosewater
Traces of Middle Eastern cuisine in British food
The growth in popularity of Middle Eastern food in
Britain
Sweets
Old and New – Modern Middle Eastern Cuisine
Practical and technical innovations in households large
and small
Eating at table
Modern preservation techniques
Changes in gastronomy
First restaurants
Modern restaurants

Your Food – Our Food:


The Role of Politics and Economics
Politics and economics
Culinary identities
Dolma in Iraq
The dispute over hummus and falafel
Chefs for Peace
Other conflicts over the origins of foods
New forms of gardening
Halāl as an economic factor
New halāl concepts
Foodstuffs among strictly conservative Muslims in the
diaspora

Conclusion
Index of Recipes and Metric Conversions
Glossary of Ingredients
Timeline
Bibliography
Prologue
The German scholar Adam Mez, who founded the School of Islamic Studies
at Basel University in Switzerland, is thought to have been the first person to
produce an intensive study of the role played by eating and drinking in
Islamic societies. All he had at his disposal were literary and historical
sources. Accordingly, the end result was a somewhat skewed picture of
medieval Oriental cuisine – by which he meant principally Arab cuisine.
The first medieval Arab cookbook to come to light, which was only edited as
late as 1934 by the Iraqi scholar Daoud Chelebi, was translated into English
five years later by the British Arabist Arthur John Arberry. In 1949, research
into the culinary history of the Islamic world took a great leap forward with
the completion of a doctoral dissertation by the French orientalist Maxime
Rodinson (1915–2004) entitled Recherches sur les documents arabes rélatifs à
la cuisine (‘A study of Arab documents on the subject of cookery and food’).
This was the first account of Arab/Islamic cuisine to proceed from the basis
of a cookbook. In addition, Rodinson, who was influenced by the
contemporary ‘Annales School’ of French historiography, focused primarily
on the social and political significance of the art of cooking in his research
and addressed the question of the influence of Arab cooking on European
cuisine. There followed studies of Arab cookbooks from al-Andalus
(Moorish Spain) and a variety of Islamic cuisines ranging from Morocco to
Indonesia, all of which have substantially enhanced our knowledge of food
and drink in Muslim societies.
The great boom which has taken place in the publication of cookbooks
over the last two decades or so has not passed by Eastern cuisines. Thanks to
her encyclopaedic knowledge of the culinary traditions and cuisines of the
Near and Middle East, the most important author in this regard has been
Claudia Roden (b. 1936), who since the late 1960s has produced numerous
volumes containing recipes she has collected and notes on the cultural
history of food, along with anecdotes and autobiographical observations.
The majority of cookbooks on individual countries of the Islamic world
are devoted to the cuisine of Morocco; the doyenne of this particular field is
the French author Zette Guinaudeau-Franc. One of the first writers to
introduce an English-speaking audience to the real cuisine of the Middle
East was Elizabeth David (1913–1992). Her celebrated first work, A Book of
Mediterranean Food (1950), included recipes and ingredients that harked
back to the time she had spent in Cairo and Alexandria in British-occupied
Egypt during the Second World War.
Further references to cookbooks and works on the cultural history of food
and drink in the Islamic world can be found in the Bibliography section.
No Pork, no Alcohol
‘O you who believe! – Eat of the good things which We have provided for
you and be grateful to Allah if it is Him that you worship.’ Thus declares
Surah 2, verse 172 of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Whereas other
religions tend to treat eating and drinking as mere necessities for the
maintenance of life, Islam also regards these functions as manifestations of
the perfection of the divine creation. The Qur’an exhorts people to delight in
eating and drinking. The Prophet Muhammad, who in the view of Muslim
believers had the deepest, most complete knowledge of the Qur’an, called
the ‘uncreated word of Allah’ a banquet (ma‘duba) to which everyone was
invited. For everyone who read it, the Prophet further elucidated, it offered
the greatest diversity of dishes – piquant, sweet or sour. On the other hand,
the Qur’an admonished the faithful not to indulge in gluttony; ‘Eat and
drink, but not to excess. For He [Allah] does not love the intemperate’
(Surah 7:31).
Of course, in common with all other religions, Islam is not without its
precepts and proscriptions. However, in comparison to the dietary
requirements in Judaism, these are positively simple. In Islam, there are
rules relating to eating and fasting. Prior to eating, a person must wash their
hands and invoke the name of God before partaking of their first mouthful.
It is equally important to eat only with one’s right hand. As far as fasting is
concerned, there are certain days and periods during which people are
enjoined to refrain entirely from taking food and drink, others on which
fasting is allowed, and finally yet others on which fasting is forbidden.
Hence, fasting is prohibited on the feast days of Eid al-Adha (‘The Feast of
the Sacrifice’) and on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan,
the Islamic holy month of fasting, as well as on every Friday except those
which fall in Ramadan. Dietary taboos, on the other hand, relate almost
exclusively to the consumption of pork and alcoholic beverages. To the
devout Muslim, pork in any form is harām – that is, strictly forbidden.
For instance, Surah 2:173 clearly states: ‘He has only forbidden you what
dies of its own accord, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been
dedicated to other than Allah.’
Why no pork?

Muslim exegetes and commentators of the Qur’an, as well as Jewish scholars


who have pronounced on the comparable proscription in the Old Testament
(Leviticus 11:7), and finally Western cultural studies academics have put
forward numerous theories as to how the ban on pork first arose. Medical
arguments are frequently cited. Trichinae (parasitic roundworms) in pork
can cause serious illnesses. When these pathogens were first discovered in
the 19th century, Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians alike regarded it
as being proof of the wisdom and truth of their holy scriptures. However,
the real reason for the proscription should rather be sought in theological
thinking. In the ancient Middle East, pigs were sacrificial animals
slaughtered in honour of heathen gods and goddesses. The ban on the
consumption of pork was intended therefore to set Jews and Muslims clearly
apart from the devotees of the deities of the ancient East and classical
antiquity even where everyday practices were concerned.
Muslims have a deep aversion, even disgust, towards pork. Even if they
have inwardly distanced themselves to an extreme degree from their
religion, they still forego consumption of this meat. It can easily happen that
a Communist of Arab descent, who is by no means averse to a glass of
whisky, will criticise an Egyptian Muslim female colleague for eating ham.
Likewise, the Tatars of Central Asia often have no problem with drinking
alcohol, but only very rarely eat pork. In spite of the long period of anti-
religious propaganda in the Soviet Union, their intense dislike of pork has
remained.
Moreover, the taboo relates not only to the consumption of pork but also
to the use of pigskin and pig’s bristles.
In addition, Muslims avoid gelatine, even when used in the manufacture
of medicines. Contemporary Muslim scholars of Sharia law disapprove of
coreligionists working as waiters in restaurants where dishes containing
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