In these difficult times our regular patterns of living have been disrupted. We now think twice before indulging in something as simple as an evening of shopping at the local mall. We’re nervous and worried. Sleep is frequently as elusive as laughter. For comfort, more and more people are turning to food. Eating is fortunately one activity that can still be justified.
Restaurants are not the beneficiaries of this trend. Instead, folks are getting out the pots and pans at home. Cooking is the preferred activity of the moment. People want real food, often dishes remembered from childhood, to satisfy their longings for happier days. In Kuwait, with the influx of the US military and other support personnel, the importers of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese are doing a booming business. Macaroni and cheese is a dish many Americans associate with their school days. Those individuals savoring a little pleasure in forkfuls of cheesy pasta are probably completely unaware that they are finding solace in two foods that originated in the Arab world.
Many sources report that cheese was first made in the Middle East. The earliest type was a form of sour milk. Legend has it that cheese was “discovered” by an unknown Arab nomad. This Bedouin carried milk in his saddlebag to sustain him on a journey across the desert by horse. After several hours of riding he stopped for refreshment, only to find that the milk had separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps. The milk had been stored in his saddlebag, in a pouch made from the stomach of an animal. Thus it was exposed to the coagulating enzyme known as rennet. The rennet, the hot sun and the galloping motions of the horse had combined to separate the milk into curds and whey. These curds were the earliest form of cheese, and the Bedouin found them delicious.
As for macaroni, Clifford A. Wright, a cook and author specializing in Mediterranean cuisine, claims that “the earliest evidence of a true macaroni occurs at the juncture of medieval Sicilian, Italian, and Arab cultures.” Wright’s article on the history of macaroni is posted online at cliffordawright.com/history/macaroni.html.
According to Wright, Italian cookery works of the 14th century mention pasta secca, or dried pasta, by the generic name of tria, derived from the Arabic word itriya. This was the word used to mean vermicelli by Al-Idrisi, the Arab court geographer of the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II, in his book completed in 1154.
“The word itriya has a long history in Near Eastern languages,” wrote Wright. “In the 14th century dictionary of the lexicographer Al-Firuzabadi, itriya is said to refer to a pasta-like thread made from flour and almost certainly made from hard wheat. The word is also used to designate a kind of pasta secca in the 13th-century cookery book of Al-Baghdadi, the Kitab Wasf Al-At’ma Al-Mu’tada, and in the medical treatise of Ibn Butlan, the famed Taqwim Al-Sihha.”
Wright has found several explanations for why the Arabs created macaroni. For example an Italian scholar, Luigi Sada, speculated that nomadic Arabs experimented with hard wheat to make macaroni, in order to produce an easily transportable food that would not spoil. Wright’s own idea is that macaroni was invented by “some unknown Arab general of military logistics who had the responsibility of feeding the large and rapidly moving armies of early Islam across the arid reaches of North Africa and the Middle East.”
Wright pointed out that the Arabs invented not only macaroni but perhaps lasagne, too.
“Lasagne is thought to be one of the earliest forms of pasta secca,” commented Wright. “An intriguing line on the history of lasagne has been proposed by several scholars. They suggest that lasagne may be derived from lawzinaj, a medieval Arabic word that denotes a thin cake of pastry, usually made with almonds.”
It is not surprising that the Arabs should have had great influence on the development of Western cookery. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean was dominated by Islamic culture for 800 years, from the 8th century to the end of the 15th century. When the territory ruled by Islamic leaders was at its greatest, it stretched from Spain, in the West, to today’s Indonesia, in the East. As the Arabs advanced into new regions, they discovered all sorts of things they had never encountered before.
Andrew M. Watson, in his book “Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World,” says that the rise of Islam brought “a crucial enlargement of demand” for consumer goods of all kinds.
During Islam’s Golden Age, foods, cooking methods and cookery books were collected and developed. Information on new culinary ideas was rapidly disseminated throughout Muslim-controlled lands. Islamic civilization was the most advanced in the world at that time and Europeans enthusiastically translated and transplanted much of Islamic culture into their own. Europeans were also exposed to the foods of the Middle East during the Crusades.
Unfortunately, as with many of the inventions and innovations of the Arab world, the rise of Western civilization meant that the Middle East’s contributions to the culinary arts were largely forgotten. Most of the cookbooks from Islam’s Golden Age were lost.
It became difficult to uncover the influences of the Arab world on the Western culinary arts, even for those with a serious interest.
“When I began researching Middle Eastern dishes in the early 1960s, there were no Egyptian cookery books and less than a handful from other Middle Eastern countries,” wrote Claudia Roden, the author of several Middle Eastern cookbooks, in the foreword of the new compilation, “Medieval Arab Cookery.”
In the course of her research, a librarian at the British Library introduced Roden to the first English translation of a medieval Arab cookbook. Professor A.J. Arberry had translated the 13th century culinary manual, “Kitab Al-Tabikh” and published the work under the title “A Baghdad Cookery Book” in a 1939 issue of Islamic Culture. In later years there were other efforts at the translation of culinary texts from Islam’s Golden Age, but many important ones, particularly those of the famous scholar Maxime Rodinson, were unavailable in English. It was not until 2001, with the release of “Medieval Arab Cookery,” that 75 years of research into the impact of the Arab world on the culinary arts, by the most renown scholars in the field, became available in one publication directed at an English-speaking audience.
While scholarly efforts are important, it is also essential that in the interest of cultural understanding, people everywhere become aware of the wonderful foods of the Arab world. The Internet has proved vital in this mission. Many websites have been created to allow individuals of Middle Eastern descent to share their favorite dishes with a global audience.
For those completely uninitiated in the preparation of Middle Eastern food, Arabic Slice (arabicslice.com) provides a concise online introduction. The site attempts to show a slice of cuisine from every Arab country. Created by Rabia Alkattan, the site is a family endeavor, but the quality is high. All necessary ingredients and utensils are detailed, with both text and photos. Recipes are presented using an illustrated step-by-step approach. Instructions for two of the dishes pictured on this page today, muhallebia and baklava, are posted at Arabic Slice. For those who would like to experience one of the ways that the Arab world uses dried pasta, give the recipe, Roz Wa Sha’riyah, a try. This dish is not macaroni and cheese, but it makes a nice change from potatoes as an accompaniment to another American culinary specialty — meatloaf.
Arab News Features 13 March 2003