Some General Notes on Islamic Cooking

Weights and Measures
1 ratl (< the Greek litra < the Roman libra)=12 û qiyas; in 13th century Andalusia, 1 ratl=468.75 g, about a pound
1 û qiya (< the Roman uncia)=10 dirham; in 13th century Andalusia, 1 û qiya=39 g, about 1 1/3 ounces or 7 teaspoons
1 mithqâ l=10/7 dirham; in Andalusia, 5.7 g
1 dirham (< the Greek drachme)=6 danaq; in 13th century Andalusia, 1 dirham=3.9 g, or 3/4 teaspoon
1 thumn = 1/8 qadah (according to Hinz. The word literally means an eighth, and its application to saffron in this cookbook suggests that it may sometimes be an eighth of a dirham).
1 mudd (< modius, the Roman peck); in the Maghrib=4.32 liters. Some recipes in this book refer to the " small mudd, " which might have been 1.08 liters.
1 qadah=0.94 liters or (the " great qadah" ) 1.88 liters, by Egyptian measurement, which might be implied in some recipes. In Andalusia, however, the qadah was a measurement of wine and very much larger, on the order of 32 liters.
1 kail can equal from 6.5 liters to 22 liters. The word literally means " a measure."
Makkû k: Another vague unit of volume, varying from 7.5 to 18.8 liters.
From Islamische Masse und Gewichte by Walther Hinz, E. J. Brill, Leiden 1955

Ingredients

Mastic should be available from a good spice store, or possibly an Indian grocery store. Aphrodisia (282 Bleeker St., NY, NY 10014, (212) 989-6440), which was my source for spices many years ago, sells both retail and mail order, as does Magickal Childe, Inc. (35 West 19th St., NY, NY 10011, (212) 242-7182). Wheat starch and sumac can be found in Iranian grocery stores. The sesame oil in Islamic recipes probably corresponds to modern Middle Eastern sesame oil, which is almost tasteless, not to the strongly flavored sesame oil used in Chinese cooking.
So far as we can tell, the only old world variety of bean other than lentils and garbanzos commonly available is the fava or broad bean, so we use it in bean recipes.

Murri

The 13th-century Islamic recipes frequently contain an ingredient called murri or (in some translations) almori. It is one of a group of condiments that were popular in early Islamic cooking and vanished sometime after the fourteenth century. Al-Baghdadi gives the following recipes for murri; if you try one and it works out, let me know. According to Charles Perry, the penny-royal in these recipes is a mis-translation and should be budhaj (rotted barley). He gives the following instructions for making budhaj:
" All the recipes concur that budhaj was made from barley flour (or a mixture of barley and wheat) kneaded without leaven or salt. Loaves of this dough were rotted, generally in closed containers for 40 days, and then dried and ground into flour for further rotting into the condiments."
(First recipe)
Take 5 ratls each of penny-royal and flour. Make the flour into a good dough without leaven or salt, bake, and leave until dry. Then grind up fine with the penny-royal, knead into a green trough with a third the quantity of salt, and put out into the sun for 40 days in the heat of the summer, kneading every day at dawn and evening, and sprinkling with water. When black, put into conserving jars, cover with an equal quantity of water, stirring morning and evening: then strain it into the first murri. Add cinnamon, saffron and some aromatic herbs.
(Second recipe)
Take penny-royal and wheaten or barley flour, make into a dry dough with hot water, using no leaven or salt, and bake into a loaf with a hole in the middle. Wrap in fig leaves, stuff into a preserving-jar, and leave in the shade until fetid. Then remove and dry.

Recently, Charles Murray has succeeded in making murri; the process was a lengthy one. He reports that the taste is rather like soy sauce, although there are no soy beans in it. I believe his experiments were written up (by him) in the L.A. Times, but I do not have the cite.

In addition to the surviving recipes for murri, there are also at least two surviving references to what was apparently a fake murri, a substitute made by a much simpler process. If one cannot have real murri, period fake murri seems like the next best thing. The recipe is as follows:

Byzantine Murri
Kitab Wasf, Sina'ah 52, p. 56, Sina'ah 51, p. 65: Charles Perry tr.

Description of byzantine murri [made] right away: There is taken, upon the name of God the Most High, of honey scorched in a nuqrah [perhaps this word means 'a silver vessel'], three ratls; pounded scorched oven bread, ten loaves; starch, half a ratl; roasted anise, fennel and nigella, two û qiyas of each; byzantine saffron, an û qiya; celery seed, an û qiya; syrian carob, half a ratl; fifty peeled walnuts, as much as half a ratl; split quinces, five; salt, half a makkû k dissolved in honey; thirty ratls water; and the rest of the ingredients are thrown on it, and it is boiled on a slow flame until a third of the water is absorbed. Then it is strained well in a clean nosebag of hair. It is taken up in a greased glass or pottery vessel with a narrow top. A little lemon from Takranjiyya (? Sina'ah 51 has Bakr Fahr) is thrown on it, and if it suits that a little water is thrown on the dough and it is boiled upon it and strained, it would be a second (infusion). The weights and measurements that are given are Antiochan and Zahiri [as] in Mayyafariqin.
The following quantities are for 1/32 of the above recipe.
3 T honey (2/3 t nigela) 1 1/2 oz quince
1 1/2 oz bread 1/4 t saffron 1/2 c salt in 3T honey
1 T wheat starch 1/3 t celery seed 1 pint water
2/3 t anise 1/4 oz carob lemon (1/4 of one)
2/3 t fennel 1/4 oz walnut

I cooked the honey in a small frying pan on medium heat, bringing it to a boil then turning off the heat and repeating several times; it tasted scorched. The bread was sliced white bread, toasted in a toaster to be somewhat blackened, then mashed in a mortar. The anise and fennel were toasted in a frying pan or roasted under a broiler, then ground in a mortar with celery seed and walnuts. The quince was quartered and cored. After it was all boiled together for about 2 hours, it was put in a potato ricer, the liquid squeezed out and lemon juice added. The recipe generates about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 c of liquid. I then add another 1/2c or water to the residue, simmer 1/2 hr -1 hr, and squeeze out that liquid for the second infusion, which yields about 1/3 c. A third infusion using 1/3 c yields another 1/4 c or so.

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