honeyed dates

[ursula]

I made honeyed dates for the baronial dessert potluck today, based on a thirteenth-century recipe from al-Baghdadi's Kitab al-Ṭabikh, as translated and collected in Medieval Arab Cookery:

Take fresh-gathered dates, and lay in the shade and air for a day; then remove the stones, and stuff with peeled almonds. For every ten raṭls of dates, take two raṭls of honey: boil over the fire with two uqiya of rose-water and half a dirham of saffron, then throw in the dates, stirring for an hour [Charles Perry's preface notes "a while" is a better translation]. Remove, and allow to cool. When cold, sprinkle with fine-ground sugar scented with musk, camphor and hyacinth. Put into glass preserving-jars, sprinkling on top some of the scented ground-sugar. Cover, until the weather is cold and chafing-dishes are brought in.

The raṭl is a unit of weight. I bought ten ounces of pitted dates and stuffed them with raw almonds. I weighed out two ounces of honey, which isn't very much (less than a quarter cup), and heated it with a tablespoon of rosewater and a few ground threads of saffron. (I should have ground the saffron and then used the rosewater to dissolve more of it, but didn't think to do so.) Once the honey mixture boiled, I added the stuffed dates and stirred for a while (definitely much less than an hour!)

I didn't have anything for musk or camphor (though I understand that in Australia they sell artificial musk-flavored Lifesavers, and I've heard of SCA people using them in recipes like these). But the footnotes said that hyacinth might mean spikenard or angelica. As it happens, we have both those things. The spikenard was ancient; I chewed on some, and it didn't taste like anything at all. I thought about running it through the spice grinder, but we've mostly been using our spice grinder for cumin lamb lately, and even after running some rice through to clean it, I thought the Szechuan pepper and cumin would overwhelm whatever flavor remained in the spikenard.

I bought the angelica powder for Persian cooking, years ago. (My sister's first husband was Persian.) I haven't used much of the angelica, since I'm not entirely sold on the flavor: it smells sharp, like amchur (mango powder) or citrus, but with an undertone like mown grass just starting to decay. I mixed an eighth of a teaspoon into a quarter-cup of sugar, and that was enough to make all of the sugar smell like angelica. I sprinkled some angelica sugar on the dates before transporting them to the event, and more after I had dished them out. I think this is a good use for angelica: it has an effect similar to a squeeze of lemon in a modern recipe, and in this quantity it's not overwhelming.

The next recipe in the book involves reconstituting dried dates using the juice of a green watermelon. This sounds like a lot of fun.

Comments

[yhlee]

I'm eating regular pitted dates because of this post. XD

Okay, if I figure out some way to join the SCA will I someday learn to make REALLY TASTY FOODS like the ones you keep blogging about?!

[ursula]

Yay, dates!

Possibly? Local groups tend to have particular artistic strengths: in Seattle there was an excellent tradition of medieval cooking, in southern California there was really good brewing, in Wisconsin/Minnesota we knew people who were doing fascinating things with refining metals, and in my current group there are lots of opportunities to play medieval instruments. So I can definitely promise you would learn how to make a cool thing, but it's hard for me to predict which thing would be easiest to learn, without knowing what your local group is like.

[yhlee]

Oh man, I would be all over learning to play a medieval instrument; I used to play viola and classical guitar, and still noodle at keyboard, (although am out of practice) so I expect I could pick up the basics without too much difficulty, and I still play soprano recorder (albeit mostly to play anime or computer game tunes by ear, probably not what the SCA has in mind). But hey, I am not picky about what kind of cool thing I'd learn to do--I just think it sounds like a lot of fun, and would like to hang out with people. I should probably look up the local group and email their contact person and ask how people usually go about joining...

[ursula]

If you show up with a recorder and play a song, I think just about any group will be thrilled to have you.

The contact person is going to be called a chatelaine. These days, a lot of stuff is probably announced on a Facebook group, so it's also worth finding the one for your local branch and keeping an eye on it for meetings, classes, etc. (There's a whole ecosystem of special-interest SCA Facebook groups; I spend the most time on SCA Heraldry Chat.)

It sounds like your fencing teacher is also involved in the SCA, so if you express some interest, he might start inviting you to things?

[yhlee]

Hahaha I can do that. Unless it's in F# major or something, I can play a lot of stuff by ear, although my sight-reading isn't the greatest.

I'll ask the fencing teacher on Monday who he'd recommend getting in contact with, thanks!

[sporky_rat]

If Ryan can't hook you up, he needs to turn in his white collar. ;)

[yhlee]

He suggested I show up to Scribal Night today after Adult Beginner fencing class, which is what I'll do! I have suggested to Joe that he bring a book. (Scribing/coloring is not relevant to Joe's interests...) I'm really looking forward to it.

[sporky_rat]

:) Excellent! If you have questions he or she or others there can't answer (they should and I'll poke at a couple of folks who'll probably be there) you know where to find me!

[yhlee]

=) Much appreciated!

[ursula]

Hope it was fun!

In continued cross-pollination, I tried to pick up a scroll assignment because pengwern was making me wistful for calligraphy, but there are no upcoming courts in my region. I guess Pennsic's not so far away.

[kareina]

Even if your local group doesn't focus on your favourite things to learn, the SCA can still be a great excuse to travel to learn cool things. Most Kingdoms have weekend long events dedicated to just classes, and even the big inter-Kingdom "Wars" usually have so many classes available to take that it can be hard to notice there is fighting going on if you are busy with them. (And, of course, if you are interested in something that isn't being done locally and learn to do it there are likely people who would be delighted to have you teach them...)

[yhlee]

Thanks for the rundown! I have a friend from college who is big into the SCA and travels for it and it always sounds like she and her husband are having a great time doing it. :)

[rushthatspeaks]

Oh, those sound lovely.

I think the standard substitute for camphor is cloves?

[ursula]

I don't remember seeing cloves in medieval Islamic recipes, though I haven't done a concerted search. I guess camphor is used in modern Indian cooking; I should keep an eye out next time I'm in the Indian grocery store.

Also, I had no idea that camphor was used in the production of smokeless gunpowder. Thank you for inspiring me to look up its uses!

[rushthatspeaks]

Indian cooking is where I got 'use cloves for camphor', as older cookbooks tend to proffer substitutes for things they assume you can't get in the U.S..