Neither Fish Nor Fowl: A Pomegranate Spring of Eggplant and Abbasid Chicken

[image from http://images.8tracks.com/; Still Life With Pomegranate by Mark Schneider]

"We shape our self / to fit this world / and by the world / are shaped again. / The visible / and the invisible / working together / in common cause, / to produce / the miraculous." [David Whyte, excerpt from Working Together, from The House of Belonging.]

In keeping with my quest to find cuisines shared across the Islamic world and the impact of Islamic cuisines on that of its Western non-Islamic neighbors, I've been reading Nawal Nasrallah's labor of love Annals of the Caliph's Kitchen, a translation of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's 10th century cookbook Kitabh al-Tabikh (The Book of Recipes). This cookbook, one of the oldest in the world, is the most comprehensive work of its kind and includes more than 600 recipes from the royal cuisine of the medieval Abbasid court in Baghdad. The recipes showcase food meant for "kings and caliphs and lords and leaders." The methods of medieval Baghdadi Abbasid cuisine explored in this cookbook led to a "lasting cuisine that traveled westwards as far as Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula, and eastwards as far as India" according to Nasrallah's research. Furthermore, Nasrallah quotes Bernard Rosenberger as stating that "the re-conquest of Spain and Sicily...introduced first the countries of the Mediterranean and later those of Western Europe to classical Muslim foods and tastes," as well as Anne Wilson whose research shows that the experience of the Crusaders in the Eastern Mediterranean region "was to have a considerable impact on the diet of Western Europe."

Some of us have always thus been inevitably intertwined, at least, in our culinary tastes and histories.

Nasrallah's book reads like an Arabian Nights of cooking in her descriptions of medieval Baghdadi food culture. The food-related excesses she describes as part of courtly culture (whether preparing and eating elaborate meals, seeking out and writing about the most unique ingredients and food experiences, and so on) is not unlike the culture of culinary excess that we live in today, if one has ample disposable income and time, that is. There are many more of us today who can indulge like the Abbasids, perhaps not every day, but certainly a few times every month.

Don't be misled by my cynical tone here. Regardless of the excesses described in this cookbook and in our contemporary consumerist lives, this type of culinary history (like all historical accounts) nevertheless is valuable in that it holds the key to the events that we feel compelled to reenact when presented with similar motivating impulses and influences. Also, I have a more personal reason for reading this history. After a youth somewhat squandered by learning about ancient Romans and ancient Egyptians (neither of whom are directly relevant to my own culinary heritage), I'm trying to fill the gap in my knowledge of one of my own culinary ancestors -- the Abbasids. As a certain witty scholar and fabulous cook I know says "Abbasids are our Romans" with the "us" referring to South Asians whose cuisine and culture have been affected by medieval Islamic food culture.

Recipes are like maps to places we can't return or travel to anymore, or to mythical places that may never have existed. They are keys to memories of events that may never have taken place or histories long forgotten. Each re-creation of a recipe then is an act that requires an imaginative fusion of fact and fiction, of history and memory. In writing about even older recipes, ancient Mesopotamian recipes from the "Yale Babylonian" recipe tablets to be precise, Laura Kelly a/k/a the Silk Road Gourmet writes here: "These ancient recipes are a fascinating challenge for modern cooks—not only because they are a window into the food culture of ancient Mesopotamia, but also because they are actually little more than lists of ingredients, usually with scant information on the amounts of ingredients to use, their form, or even how to prepare the dishes. Although difficult for some to navigate, the recipes allow for a great deal of creativity in using what is on hand or in reinterpreting dishes with favorite local and personal flavors. (In medieval Europe, recipes were typically written like this, and outside the industrialized world they still are.)"

For many if not all of us, each such act is also a small creative gesture (whether or not intentional) towards the daily puzzle that is our identity that we add to, subtract from, discard or destroy, every day. For Nasrallah, who lives in self-imposed exile in Boston Massachusetts after leaving Iraq in 1990, I imagine the recipes and the culinary history she's expended substantial effort to unearth must represent all of these and more. As I read through her book and contemplate the gift it contains (whether or not her readers appreciate it), I feel like taking the next train to Boston, showing up at her door and giving her a great big, tearful hug. Good thing for her, I don't know her address:-)

When, like Nasrallah, we live in exile both from our original places of birth (geographically and psychologically) and in our chosen places of residence (psychologically), when we have one of those hyphenated identities (whether acquired at birth or upon naturalization), often (not every day I hope, but sometimes) "life...is a daily confrontation with micro-aggressions and gestures of alienation" as Zia Haider Rahman, the brilliant author of In The Light Of What We Know, said recently in an opinion piece in the New York Times about life for immigrants and their children in Europe. It's as if the identity puzzle I spoke of above is in the hands of the people who we encounter every day, instead of in our own hands, and they (rather than we) are the ones putting the puzzle together as they see fit based on their own limited knowledge and experiences of who it is the hyphenated puzzle identity standing in front of them may be. As Rahman sees it: "Every battle of ideas is fought on the terrain of language. To the white Briton, the hyphenated identity — Bangladeshi-British, Pakistani-British — only highlights otherness. Each side regards the hyphenated identity as a concession to the other, rather than both rejoicing in a new stripe in a rainbow nation." This resonates to a certain extent with hyphenated Americans like me even though the culture of immigrant assimilation works quite differently in the United States (with its many and diverse state, urban, suburban and rural subcultures) when compared to Britain.

Inspired by Rahman's eloquently penned NYT piece, this battle for identity is one that I hope to wage in the terrain of food cultures and recipes. When I mention that I like to cook, I'm asked every time whether I cook "my own kind of food". The person harmlessly asking the question means Bangladeshi food, of course. When I say yes I only cook my own kind of food, I mean something quite different. I like to cook, serve, eat, read and learn about, travel for and find food from all the various cultures, places, stories and histories that have shaped who I am (literally and imaginatively) today. Unlike food writing about the exotic other, the exploration I've embarked on here is not for the seekers, keepers and peddlers of authenticity. Not because I've anything against traditional cooking. Far from it. Without some agreement about what tradition requires, there can be no reaction (like mine) to such tradition. The sad truth is that a quest for the "authentic" and who gets to represent the "authentic" leaves those of us with pixelated identities out in the cold. My food writing and recipes are for those who seek the roots they never knew or may have forgotten, that are mistakenly ascribed to them, that they've grafted on to themselves, that they imaginatively recreate or reject as a lifelong endeavor of reimaginings and realizations. These posts and the recipes in them try to capture the "who" of who I am (and those many others like me) as an evolving composite of where we come from, where we've have been and where we aspire to go someday.

The two recipes in this post, one vegan, one not -- Eggplant "Chutney" with Pomegranate Molasses and Abbasid-Style Chicken with Pomegranate Molasses -- are examples of composite recipes imaginatively created from multiple sources. The first is inspired by a sweet and sour chutney-like Bangladeshi dish from my mother's recipe closet handed down to her from her mom, my late nani or maternal grandmother, that I've modified to incorporate pomegranate molasses instead of tamarind paste for sourness, and added a couple of other little twists. For added inspiration, I also read this recipe by a fellow food blogger Imik Simik: Cooling with Gaul for his/her adaptation of Louisa Shafia's Eggplant and Tomato Stew with Pomegranate Molasses from The New Persian Kitchen. The chicken recipe is adapted from Nasrallah's translation of The Book of Recipes. Here's the original recipe by a boon companion to a 9th century Abbasid Caliph. Not too shabby, I say! I cooked it according to methods and using quantities that are my own as an act of reinterpreting a historical recipe for contemporary tastes. The dish uses the ancient Arab and Byzantine condiment murri, for which I substituted tamari or high-quality soy sauce.

As Rahman points out so poignantly, the cultural mainstream's discomfort with otherness is unlikely to go away. So, for those of us who fall into the role of the other, temporarily, permanently or situationally, the least we can do is to fashion this otherness for ourselves in our own chosen images in our reimagined food cultures.

Eggplant "Chutney" with Pomegranate Molasses

Eggplant with Pomegranate Sauce. Photo by Mir Elias, 2016.

Servings 6-8
Cooking Time ~30 minutes (Prep ~1 hour)

• 4 Asian Eggplants or 1 Large Eggplant cut into 3 inch long pieces [salt and set aside for an hour, then wash and pat dry carefully]
• 1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp. (or 1 tsp. if you prefer more heat) chili/cayenne powder
• 3 Tbsp. oil [I used coconut oil]
• 1 Tbsp. raw honey
• 3 Tbsp. (or less for less sourness) of pomegranate molasses [available in stores that stock Middle Eastern products; I used the fresh kind from Turkey]
• Salt to taste
• A little hot water
• Thai basil (optional) or fresh coriander leaves for garnish 

1. Saute the onion in oil until translucent.
2. Add garlic and tomato and saute for a couple of minutes.
3. Mix the onion garlic mixture thoroughly with the remaining ingredients (except water) and lay out the eggplant slices (skin side up) in a flat saucepan. Heat on medium heat until the liquid released (including any water added sparingly as needed) starts to boil.
4. Cover and simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes until the liquid has almost evaporated. Add hot water sparingly to prevent sticking.
5. Add the honey and pomegranate molasses.
6. Cook for a few more minutes until all the moisture has evaporated. Turn off heat.
7. Garnish with Thai basil, if using, or fresh coriander leaves.
8. Serve at room temperature.

Abbasid-Style Chicken with Pomegranate Molasses

Abbasid-Style Chicken with Pomegranate Molasses. Photo by Mir Elias, 2016.

Servings 6-8
Cooking Time ~1 hour (Prep. ~1 hour)

• 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces [since the Abbasids used game birds such as bustard, francolin, grouse and sand grouse, pasture-raised chicken, guinea hen or pheasant would be the more appropriate substitutes; mine is the common person's version with chicken] 
• 1/2 bunch parsley leaves, chopped
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1/2 bunch celery stalks with leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoon Turkish red pepper or cayenne powder or hot paprika powder (optional)
• Whole roasted black pepper (2 Tbsp.), cloves (1 Tbsp.), caraway seeds (1-1/2 Tbsp.), coriander seeds (1 Tbsp.) [place in a sachet for easy removal or ground to a powder]
• Tamari or high-quality soy sauce (2 Tbsp.) or to taste
• Pomegranate molasses (3 Tbsp. or less for less sourness)
• Hot water, as needed
• Fresh coriander or mint leaves for garnish
• Pomegranate seeds for garnish (optional)

1. Saute onion until translucent.

2. Add chopped parsley leaves and celery stalk with leaves and saute for a few minutes.

3. Lightly brown the chicken on all sides.

4. Add the remaining spices and soy sauce and a little hot water, bring to a boil, cover and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes or so or until chicken is tender.

5. Add pomegranate molasses and cook for a few minutes.

6. Check taste and add salt and adjust sourness, as needed. Turn off heat. 

7. Garnish with fresh coriander or mint leaves and pomegranate seeds, if using.

8. Serve immediately, "God willing" (to channel a quirkily lovable expression from medieval Muslim cookbooks).

Pixelated. Photo by Mir Elias, 2016.

Have Food Will Travel: You Can't Take It With You or Can You?

Spring Blossom on Tree Trunk. Photo by Mir Elias, 2016.

"Hey mama, when you leave / Don't leave a thing behind / I don't want nothin' / I can't use nothin'"

"But I long for the day when I'll have new birth / Still I love the livin' here on earth"

Yet another Spring, Nowruz (Persian New Year), and Easter are upon us. Renewal is all around, which for some of us brings to mind the other side of rebirth, unpleasant as the topic may be: death and our finitude. No, this certainly will not be a rumination on such unpleasant topics such as death and human finitude, because who has time for that! But, that ever-present shadow of mortality, however much we try to blink it away, reminded me of the often quoted phrase: "you can't take it with you." To the grave, I presume. Well, that doesn't seem to stop pretty much everyone you know including yourself (and certainly, me) from trying, striving, accumulating, always accumulating. Oh yes, and giving away, in order to accumulate more.

Along with all the other things we do as human beings, some of which seem all too paradoxically inhuman to us (e.g., murdering other human beings, whether as a state actor or as an individual or as part of an ideologically-motivated group), trying very, very hard to take it all with us, or at least fool ourselves into thinking we can, may just be one of those resident demons in our human DNA that we (at least, some of us) can only hope to reach a truce with. Slaying this demon altogether, may not be an option for most of us.

However, when it comes to food, trying to take something of your own or collective food culture or memory with you seems to be a less fraught proposition. You don't know what I mean? If you've ever tried to sneak a candy bar, or an apple, or hot sauce, or (yes) chili pepper, where it's prohibited or at least socially frowned upon, or if you've overpacked food in preparation for something (e.g., an impending journey or a storm), you know what I mean.

This desire to take it with you, when it comes to food, before the days of mechanized survival, often went to ridiculous extremes, at least for the well-resourced. I was reading Charles Dickens's "American Notes for General Circulation" about his 1842 voyage to America because I wanted to get his astute take on the Atlantic crossing, as well as American life at the time, delivered in his signature effortlessly humorous style of course. In it, he describes how a group of deck hands "took in the milk" on board the ship by bringing a live cow on board. A live cow on an Atlantic ship crossing. A live cow. Poor cow.

I remember too shopping for food in 2012 before Hurricane Sandy, considered "one of the deadliest and most destructive hurricanes that year for the Atlantic hurricane season, and the second-costliest hurricane in United States history." We all know that phenomenon of desperate shopping for food before a storm. What happens with all that milk and eggs? Do people "survive" on custards, milk shakes and omelettes for those few days, if that, while the storm blows over? Our case was a little different. We had all the rice and beans, milk and eggs too, and other provisions, frankly, to last a few months (remember, what I said about accumulation above). But, I found myself buying and eating copious amount of junk food (potato chips to be exact), which I almost never touch in my normal daily life, in anticipation of the storm that actually ended up bypassing our city altogether. And, I suspect, I was not alone in having binged on junk food for a storm that never came. Something about impending displacement (whether through a long journey or a storm) triggers some deep-seated desire to try to take calories with you, whether packed away or in your stomach.

So, I won't tell you the story about how we once packed a car full of food to go to a cabin in the woods for a week, except that the cabin was near a town, and thus, grocery stores and restaurants. I think you get my point.

For those of us who like to eat well and have dietary restrictions (religious or otherwise), all this food travel starts to get very complicated. When we make a choice about food, including what to take with us and what to eat where and when, we make subtly profound micro-decisions about who we are, in that moment and in life (at least, as far as we know in that moment). We're signaling to the world, this is who I am, this is who I'm not, this is who you are, I am not you, and you are not me. Some people, picky eaters to be exact, will go so far as to draw an uncompromising and uncrossable line in the sand when it comes to exercising control over food. Food is usually presented as a universally common denominator, which it is as a factual matter, because we all have to eat to survive. But, the proposition that food is some kind of grand unifier, as it's often presented (specially in food writing, including in my own), is an ideologically driven proposition (based on a desire for diverse peoples to "get along" by eating each other's food) that has little bearing on reality.

What we eat or don't eat divides us as often, if not more often, as what we choose to eat unites us.

Matthew Brown argues in his though-proving article Picky Eating is a Moral Failing that
"[t]o be a picky eater is to have a significant lack of openness to new experiences and to substantially hamper one’s development....As meals are perhaps the most pervasive of social experience, being a picky eater can violate your duties to others. I argue, not that everyone must attempt or pretend to like what your friends or what expert gourmands like, but that there are significant obligations to openness, self-knowledge, accommodation, and gracefulness that should impact one’s food preferences." Now, whether or not these obligations to other people "should" impact one's preferences, wouldn't it be nice if it actually did, at least once in a while?

Going back to traveling with food, I know that for me it comes from a concern that I may not be able to eat what is offered (e.g. on an international flight) or, or more controversially (at least, if we are open to the proposition that there are ethical dimensions to "picky eating"), I may not like what is offered or I may consider it unhealthy for me to eat (e.g., when traveling in an unfamiliar country). At a deeper level, this desire to travel with my kind of food, whatever that means for you (could be a nutrition bar, which is often the case for me), stems from a need to carry the familiar (in the form of a taste sensation in the brain) with you when setting out into the unknown (yes, even the humble, everyday unknown).

If you're with me this far, as we read the news every day about the millions of people who are now displaced from their homes due to war, unrest and the effects of climate change, I wonder what they're able to carry, if anything, with them to remind them of the food from a home that they've no certainty of ever returning to, specially when one comes from a place with a strong, food-centered traditional culture. And, once our memories fade or we never learned in the first place, what happens to us when we leave our foods behind? Who do we become? I know that we, by and large, adapt and survive, as migrants, refugees and immigrants always do, somehow. For example, here's one hopeful story about Syrian refugees in Beirut making a place for themselves through cooking and serving their food, and here's another about an immigrant, women run restaurant in London, but these exceptional cases are but points of light in what feels like a gradually looming darkness.

What would you take with you to remind you of home? For me, it's a jar of Mr. Shutki, a Bengli-style fermented spicy shrimp paste in a jar available in London and introduced to me by my sister, that like the ancient Romans and their garum, if I could, I would take with me everywhere and add to almost everything (veggies, pasta, rice, eggs, meat, literally everything). However, since this fermented condiment paste has a distinctive antisocial aroma, for now, I refrain and restrict myself to only writing about it.

I'll end as I began with the theme of the season by quoting one of the food authors I've learned the most from, Michael Pollan, here in an interview about his book Cooked:
"[F]ermentation puts us in touch with the ever-present tug in life, death....once you start studying fermentation, you're acutely aware of the fact that everything that lives contains the seeds of its own decomposition and that living on in the same way that on the leaves of a cabbage at any given time are various bacteria species just waiting for a breach in the cell walls to leap in and digest and rot that cabbage, you've got a lot of bacteria on you and in you waiting for the same moment. And these bacteria are our friends, but when we die, they get - they make quick work of fermenting us. And - but, you know, you go around the world, and every culture has very important ferments. This is a cultural universal, it appears. And there's a good reason for it."

Have Shrimp Paste Will Travel. Photo by Mir Elias, 2016.