The Middle-Eastern cooking as we know it today largely evolved from the cuisine of the glorious days of the Abbasid Caliphate, and even further back to the ancient Near-Eastern cultures of the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, and Mesopotamians. Of these, the Mesopotamian is the oldest and the first documented world cuisine, of which only three Babylonian cuneiform tablets are extant today (housed at the Babylonian Collection of Yale University and are currently on display at the present exhibition).
When the Arabs conquered the Byzantine and Persian empires in the middle of the seventh century, they assimilated their own simple culinary heritage with that of the local rich traditions and inherited ancient techniques of the regions they ruled. They also adopted so many exotic elements from far and wide, facilitated by active trade, immigrant communities, and foreign domestic helpers of whom the excellent cooks were valuable commodities.
During the golden days of the Abbasid Caliphate when Baghdad was called the navel of the earth, there was a considerable interest among the court and upper classes in the culinary arts and in writing and reading about them. Fine living also necessitated the desire for a healthy living, which gave rise to so many cookbooks, and books on medicine and dietetics. Fortunately, some of these books survived the ravages of time.
The Omayyad Arabs from Syria expanded to North Africa, and reached the Iberian Peninsula in the early eighth-century and stayed there for eight centuries (711-1492). They conquered the island of Sicily in southern Italy and stayed there for more than two centuries (831-1060). To al-Andalus (Andalusia) and Sicily, the Arabs brought the culinary tradition of the Eastern Islamic world, and with it, so many new crops, such as rice, sugarcane, watermelon, lemon, orange, eggplant, and spinach. Naturally, they also incorporated into their cooking the foodstuffs indigenous to the conquered western regions.
Spaniards and Sicilians absorbed Arabic arts and sciences. In Spanish, there are hundreds of words of Arabic origin related to foods and cookery. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Western Europe was introduced to the culinary wealth of the Arabs through the Crusades. Christians, fascinated by the wealth of their enemies, often borrowed from them. However, the major contribution of the Arab cuisine to European culture was largely through the conquest and re-conquest of Spain and Sicily. Farther East, the Mongols introduced the culinary traditions they learned in Baghdad to their new empire in Northern India. To this day, traces of these traditions can still be detected in the Indian cuisine. The Ottoman Empire dominated the Middle East and Eastern Europe for centuries. The Turkish cuisine was essentially diverse. Its center was the capital, Istanbul, where a refined tradition was created by bringing together elements of regional culinary practices from across the empire, especially the Middle Eastern regions. It was also during this period that many of the New World crops, such as potatoes and tomatoes, were adopted. Through the Ottomans, Europe came to know and love so many of the Middle Eastern delights, such as coffee.
Plus vieille cuisine du monde [The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia] by Jean Bottéro, translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
The author attempts to give an idea about the history of food and its preparation in ancient Mesopotamia. His primary sources are the three clay tablets, dating back to the middle of the second millennium (ca. 35 centuries ago), housed at the Yale Babylonian Collection, and which the author calls "The Yale Recipes." The total number of the recipes in the three tables is forty. He adds, however:
Cooks at work in the royal kitchens.
Relief from Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh 7th century BC.
Servants back from the royal hunt with a hare and small birds.
Relief from Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh 7th century BC.
King Ashurbanipal and his queen enjoying a cup of wine in the garden.
7th century BC
The Uruk Vase showing worshippers bringing provisions to the temple of Inanna.
[The vase was stolen from the Iraq Museum in 2003, but has since been returned and partially restored.]
Uruk ca. 3000 BC
The Oldest Cookbooks in the World
These two clay tablets from the Babylonian Collection, inscribed in Akkadian contain the oldest known cooking recipes. They date to ca. 1750 BC, the time of Hammurabi, known for his famous law code. The cuneiform writing system was complex and generally only scribes who had studied for years could read and write, so it is unlikely that the cookbooks were meant for the ordinary cook or chef. Instead, they were written to document the current practices of culinary art. The recipes are elaborate and often call for rare ingredients. We may assume that they represent Mesopotamian haute cuisine meant for the royal palace or the temple.
From the thousands of tablets recording deliveries and shipments of foodstuff, from vocabulary lists of various kinds of food and from records of payments to workers and soldiers we can get a fairly accurate picture of the standard Mesopotamian diet.
The meats included beef, lamb, goat, pork, deer and fowl - the birds provided both meat and eggs. Fish were eaten along with turtles and shellfish. Various grains, vegetables and fruits such as dates, apples, figs, pomegranates and grapes were integral to the ancient Near Eastern diet. Roots, bulbs, truffles and mushrooms were harvested for the table. Salt added flavor to the food as did a variety of herbs. Honey as well as dates, grape-juice and raisins were used as sweeteners. Milk, clarified butter and fats both animal fats and vegetable oils, such as sesame, linseed and olive oils were used in cooking.
Many kinds of bread are mentioned in the texts from the lowliest barley bread used for workers' rations to elaborate sweetened and spiced cakes baked in fancy, decorated moulds in palace kitchens.
Beer (usually made of fermented barley mush) was the national beverage already in the third millennium BC, while wine grown in northern Mesopotamia was expensive and only enjoyed by the royal household or the very rich.
This tablet includes 25 recipes for stews, 21 are meat stews and 4 are vegetable stews. The recipes list the ingredients and the order in which they should be added, but does not give measures or cooking time - they were clearly meant only for experienced chefs.
YBC 4644 from the Old Babylonian Period, ca. 1750 BC
This tablet has seven recipes which are very detailed. The text is broken in several places and the name of the second recipe is missing, but it is a dish with small birds, maybe partridges:
Remove the head and feet. Open the body and clean the birds, reserving the gizzards and the pluck. Split the gizzards and clean them. Next rinse the birds and flatten them. Prepare a pot and put birds, gizzards and pluck into it before placing it on the fire.
[It does not mention whether fat or water is added -- no doubt the method was so familiar that instructions were considered unnecessary. After the initial boiling or braising, the recipe continues:]
Put the pot back on the fire. Rinse out a pot with fresh water. Place beaten milk into it and place it on the fire. Take the pot (containing the birds) and drain it. Cut off the inedible parts, then salt the rest, and add them to the vessel with the milk, to which you must add some fat. Also add some rue, which has already been stripped and cleaned. When it has come to a boil, add minced leek, garlic, samidu and onion (but not too much onion).
[While the birds cook, preparations for serving the dish must be made]
Rinse crushed grain, then soften it in milk and add to it, as you kneed it, salt, samidu, leeks and garlic along with enough milk and oil so that a soft dough will result which you will expose to the heat of the fire for a moment. Then cut it into two pieces. Take a platter large enough to hold the birds. Place the prepared dough on the bottom of the plate. Be careful that it hangs over the rim of the platter only a little. Place it on top of the oven to cook it. On the dough which has already been seasoned, place the pieces of the birds as well as the gizzards and pluck. Cover it with the bread lid [which has meanwhile been baked] and send it to the table.
YBC 8958 Old Babylonian Period, ca. 1750 BC.
THE MIDDLE-EASTERN CUISINE: THE TRADITION CONTINUES.
The mere smell of cooking can evoke a whole civilization (Fernand Braudel).
The Middle-Eastern cooking as we know it today largely evolved from the cuisine of the glorious days of the Abbasid Caliphate, and even further back to the ancient Near-Eastern cultures of the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, and Mesopotamians. Of these, the Mesopotamian is the oldest and the first documented world cuisine, of which only three Babylonian cuneiform tablets are extant today (housed at the Babylonian Collection of Yale University and are currently on display at the present exhibition).
When the Arabs conquered the Byzantine and Persian empires in the middle of the seventh century, they assimilated their own simple culinary heritage with that of the local rich traditions and inherited ancient techniques of the regions they ruled. They also adopted so many exotic elements from far and wide, facilitated by active trade, immigrant communities, and foreign domestic helpers of whom the excellent cooks were valuable commodities.
During the golden days of the Abbasid Caliphate when Baghdad was called the navel of the earth, there was a considerable interest among the court and upper classes in the culinary arts and in writing and reading about them. Fine living also necessitated the desire for a healthy living, which gave rise to so many cookbooks, and books on medicine and dietetics. Fortunately, some of these books survived the ravages of time.
The Omayyad Arabs from Syria expanded to North Africa, and reached the Iberian Peninsula in the early eighth-century and stayed there for eight centuries (711-1492). They conquered the island of Sicily in southern Italy and stayed there for more than two centuries (831-1060). To al-Andalus (Andalusia) and Sicily, the Arabs brought the culinary tradition of the Eastern Islamic world, and with it, so many new crops, such as rice, sugarcane, watermelon, lemon, orange, eggplant, and spinach. Naturally, they also incorporated into their cooking the foodstuffs indigenous to the conquered western regions.
Spaniards and Sicilians absorbed Arabic arts and sciences. In Spanish, there are hundreds of words of Arabic origin related to foods and cookery. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Western Europe was introduced to the culinary wealth of the Arabs through the Crusades. Christians, fascinated by the wealth of their enemies, often borrowed from them. However, the major contribution of the Arab cuisine to European culture was largely through the conquest and re-conquest of Spain and Sicily. Farther East, the Mongols introduced the culinary traditions they learned in Baghdad to their new empire in Northern India. To this day, traces of these traditions can still be detected in the Indian cuisine. The Ottoman Empire dominated the Middle East and Eastern Europe for centuries. The Turkish cuisine was essentially diverse. Its center was the capital, Istanbul, where a refined tradition was created by bringing together elements of regional culinary practices from across the empire, especially the Middle Eastern regions. It was also during this period that many of the New World crops, such as potatoes and tomatoes, were adopted. Through the Ottomans, Europe came to know and love so many of the Middle Eastern delights, such as coffee.
Plus vieille cuisine du monde [The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia] by Jean Bottéro, translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
The author attempts to give an idea about the history of food and its preparation in ancient Mesopotamia. His primary sources are the three clay tablets, dating back to the middle of the second millennium (ca. 35 centuries ago), housed at the Yale Babylonian Collection, and which the author calls "The Yale Recipes." The total number of the recipes in the three tables is forty. He adds, however:
"As for the immediate 'pleasures of the table,' since we are forced to abandon the hope of ever truly communing with the ancient Mesopotamians, might we not taste something like what they ate in the accomplishments of that 'Turco-Arabic,' Lebanese,' or 'Middle Eastern' cuisine (however it is called) that is available to us? For this cuisine may well constitute a prolongation, a contemporary presentation, the only one available, of the lost Mesopotamian techniques of preparing and enjoying food and drink-the oldest cuisine in the world" (p. 126).
