1 Mar
Anissa: It has been quite a while since Charles Perry did a guest post here but following a discussion and various questions on twitter about fat tail, I thought I would turn to our chief historian of medieval Arab cookery and ask him to enlighten everyone! Here is what he sent me.
Charles: Europeans and Americans – and Australians, I’m sure – are always amazed when they see the huge tails of Middle Eastern sheep. One of the first to be amazed was Herodotus, who wrote in the 5th century BC that there was a breed in Asia Minor with a tail up to 18 inches wide and another with a tail four and a half feet long. The latter sort, he said, had to be supported by a little cart made for it by the shepherd.
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13 Sep
These pickled lemons are the doqq variety which is small and very thin skinned.
Anissa: It has been quite some time since Charles Perry did a guest post but here he is now with another fascinating post on pickling lemons.
Charles: The Arabs have been pickling lemons since the Middle Ages. The 13th-century book Kitab al-Wusla ila al-Habib says, “Salty lemons (laimun malih). They are so well known they need no description.” Nevertheless, Wusla eventually gives a recipe: “Take lemons, slice them crosswise and fill them with crushed salt. Then press them into a bowl and leave for two nights for them to soften. Then press them very strongly into a glass jar, squeeze lemon juice to cover and pour it over them, and seal with oil. Their flavor keeps well.” The flavor of pickled lemons is distinctive – somewhat piney, but not bracing like pine; in fact, plush, languid, decadent. Food science writer Harold McGee tells me the chemistry of this change has not been studied, but he speculates that the pine note comes from chemicals in lemon peel called terpenes – there are also terpenes in conifers, where they also serve to protect the plant from microbes.