Cyprus-msg - 8/24/06 The culture and food of medieval Cyprus. NOTE: See also the files: Byzantine-msg, Turkey-msg, Greece-msg, sugar-msg, Cypriot-Sugr-art, p-spice-trade-msg, crusades-msg, Italy-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 10:14:56 +0200 From: Volker Bach Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] help for 1250 French/Greek To: hlaislinn at earthlink.net, Cooks within the SCA > I was curious if you had any help finding documentation for a potential > Art/Sci project. My personna is a French women (originally from Troyes) > who went on the 7th Crusade (1251) with King Louis as a retainer to > the Countess of Champaigne and also to assist Margaret (Louis' wife) who > was pregnant and delivered in Damietta. My personna ended up marrying a > gentle who belonged to the Order of Santiago de Compostela and we are in > charge of running a sugar plantation on the island of Cyprus (probably near > Paphos). I would love to serve a luncheon/banquet for the next Art/Sci > judges that would be completely representative of what I would serve. I > have some documentation from Joinville's account that they had wheat, > barley, rice, cumin and sugar, but not much else. Any help would be > greatly appreciated. This is going to be hard. From what (little) I know of the cuisine of Outremer it appears that they adopted many traditions of the Mediterranean, but retained a separate culinary identity. So even if we had a Byzantine cookbook (Dalby's Flavours of Byzantium contains excerpts from the Goponica and dietetic texts that are our closest approaches to that), we can not really be sure that this would reflect what a Latin would eat. Looking at dietetic texts might help. Several such treatises originated in Salerno, the Regimen Sanitatis being the most popular, and IIRC the Tacuinum was also in common circulation by then. That could help you get behind the idea of what was considered appropriate food, and from there you can look at what was available on Cyprus (probably a good place for luxury eating, and for seafood) and go from there. The closest I can come geographically and temporally is the second half of the Liber de Coquina, an early 14th century manuscript from Southern italy compiled from two sources, one French, the other South Italian, and probably a retranslation from a vernacular original of the 13th century. It shows a recognisably European cuisine with noticeable Arab influence. It thus looks like the Anglo-Norman Cookery Books and the Enseignements, though more northerly, would also make defensible sources for inspiration. And whatever you do, don't miss the chance to serve honey-sesame or honey-nut brittle. :-) Giano Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 11:07:53 +0200 From: "Ana Valdes" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] help for 1250 French/Greek To: "Cooks within the SCA" There is a two books about Venetian food and about Istamboul food, but there are in French. Venise exquise, written by Jean Clausel and Istamboul la magnifique, written by Artun et Beyhan Unsal. (I guess Venice, where East and West met, had similar food to Cyprus) Publisher Robert Laffont. For all Greek food I should take Siren Feasts, by Andrew Dalby, with excellent annotations and recipes from the archaic Greece to Byzantium. Ana Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 14:02:38 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] help for 1250 French/Greek To: , "Cooks within the SCA" The earliest version of the Viandier was written between 1250 and 1300 predating the Viandier of Tallivent. It might be a useful source. One might also consider the "Regimen sanitatis salerni," "De flore dietarum," and the Medieval Arab Cookery that we've been discussing. What is really needed is information about the culinary tradition of Lusignan Cyprus, but I don't know of any references. Since the Seventh Crusade is from 1244 to 1250, I assume the 1251 is presumed to their point of existence. I haven't looked at Joinville in years, but I vaguely remember the mentions of food as things eaten in the field or, at least, during the Crusade. For a broader idea of the kinds of goods and foodstuffs that flowed into the Levant at the time, one should check the taxes for the Kingdom of Jerusalem http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/taxesjlem.html . Since running a sugar plantation was one of the most profitable occupations in the Medieval world, the household would likely have access to more costly spices and foods than would be common. Bear Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 15:51:09 -0600 From: James Prescott Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] help for 1250 French/Greek To: hlaislinn at earthlink.net, Cooks within the SCA A bit of info. Richard I of England was married on Cyprus in 1192. The menu is apparently discussed by George Jeffery in the 1973 book "Cyprus Under an English King". Bookfinder.com lists 29 new or used copies available. Maria Dembinska comments that the menu bore no relation to either English or French cooking. Taro was served. So, while there were versions of Viandier prior to Taillevent, they might not be good sources for a Cypriot menu. Harleian MS 279 (while dated about 1470) apparently lists "Vyaund de cyprys bastarde" and some other Cyprus-titled recipes -- but that's a couple of hundred years later, and from England, so any resemblance may be entirely coincidental. The Cypriot king Peter de Lusignan visited Cracow in Poland in 1364, and Maria Dembinska mentions that he might have brought with him 'soumada' (almond milk for drinking) and 'glygo amygdalou' (a marzipan). Spices available especially via Cyprus at that time included greater and lesser galingale, grains of paradise, labdanum (an aromatic resin), and "monk's pepper". And of course plenty of recipes with sugar. That's about a century later than your target date. Cyprus had a well-established culinary tradition of its own, and I suspect would have been somewhat conservative about change. Diners may have used two-tined forks in Cyprus by 1251. Thorvald Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 15:30:03 -0700 From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] help for 1250 French/Greek To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Aislinn wrote: > I just got a request from a friend, and all I can offer is that maybe Le > Viandier's recipes came from an earlier book in her time period, and I know > of no Greek period cookbooks. What do you smart people have to say? I would not recommend Andrew Dalby's "Siren Feasts" for this person's needs - it's a great book, but it's about ancient Greece. However, i would recommend Dalby's "Flavours of Byzantium", since it's about, well, Byzantium, medieval Greece. Dalby translated all the works referenced from their original languages. There are no cookbooks, but there's lots of food info. Additionally, there is "In a Caliph's Kitchen", which includes some 9th and 10th c. Abbasid recipes which were still popular, and the 13th century "Kitab al-Tabikh" (Book of Dishes) by al-Baghdadi. Quite a few Europeans in the Near East took on aspects of local culture, and Europeans often employed local people to do manual labor (and cooking is manual labor). I transcribed Waines' translations of the early recipes: http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BY-REGION/E-Arab-recip-art.html -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Edited by Mark S. Harris Cyprus-msg Page 4 of 4