Arabesque: a taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon

304 Pages·2006·5.25 MB·English

by  Roden Claudia

ALSO BY CLAUDIA RODEN
The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York
Coffee: A Connoisseur's Companion
Mediterranean Cookery
The Good Food of Italy—Region by Region
Everything Tastes Better Outdoors
A Book of Middle Eastern Food

For my children, Simon, Nadia, and Anna;
my grandchildren, Cesar, Peter, Sarah, Ruby, and Nell;
and also for Clive and Ros

Contents
Introduction
Morocco
Introduction
Starters and Kemia
Main Courses
Desserts
Turkey
Introduction
Starters and Meze
Main Courses
Desserts
Lebanon
Introduction
Starters and Mezze
Main Courses
Desserts
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Three great cuisines—of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon—developed around the
Mediterranean where the Occident meets the Orient and where, long ago,
medieval jihadis and crusaders clashed. The three are part of the Mediterranean
culinary culture that the West has come to love and also share legacies from the
Islamic world, with echoes of ancient Persia and medieval Baghdad, Moorish
Spain and the Ottoman Empire.
The three countries have been centers of empire (Lebanon as part of historic
Syria) with imperial capitals where high culinary styles developed. Damascus
was the first capital of the Islamic Arab Empire during the Umayyad dynasty
from the seventh to the eighth century when the empire spread all the way to
Spain. Morocco was the center of the Almoravide and Almohad dynasties that
ruled over Spain and North Africa from the eleventh to the thirteenth century.
And Istanbul was, for more than 400 years, the glittering capital city of the huge
Ottoman Empire. Empires have a way of drawing in culinary riches from distant
lands, and court kitchens are places of creativity and refinement. Something of
the old grandeur and sophistication of their golden ages has passed down into the
kitchens of today.
The cuisines, especially Moroccan cooking, are known for their aromatic
flavorings, for the subtlety of combinations and the harmonious equilibrium.
Since early times, the countries were transit areas on the spice routes between
the Far East, Central Africa, the Spice Islands, and Europe. (My ancestors were
involved in the camel-caravan trade through Aleppo.) Today, practically every
main town has its spice shops in the souk or bazaar and each country has its own
characteristic spices and aromatics. If you traveled with your eyes closed, you
could know where you were by the taste of the food.
Lately there has been a renaissance of interest in the culinary past. Restaurants in
Istanbul are re-creating Ottoman cuisine, Fez recently had a festival dedicated to
medieval dishes from a thirteenth-century manuscript, and Lebanese
gastronomes regularly quote medieval Arab recipes. And at the same time, in
each of these countries, the rural regional cuisines have become immensely
popular.
There have been great social and technological changes that have affected the
way people cook and eat. Until not very long ago, most cooked on braziers and
Primus stoves and in outside clay ovens, or they sent dishes to the public oven to