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Michelle Berriedale-Johnson
Of all the stories ever told, the magical
tales of The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights must
be among the best-known. From Chaucer's times onward the enchanted
horse, Aladdin, Ali-Baba, Sinbad the Sailor and the Genie have inspired
writers, playwrights, poets and film-makers, and have been the stuff of
every child's bedtime stories.
The earliest tales came from India and
Persia in the eighth century AD. In the ninth century a group of stories
from Baghdad was added, featuring Caliph Harun al' Rashid. In the
thirteenth century came further Egyptian and Syrian tales. The final
stories may have been written by eighteenth-century French scholar
Galland, who translated - and expurgated - all twelve volumes and
published them in 1717. Translated into English, this version captivated
writers such as Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens and Robert Louis
Stevenson.
The tales use a literary device known as
'framing' - telling a story within a story. The outmost frame is the
story of Scheherazade and the supreme ruler, Shahryar. On discovering
that his wife has been unfaithful, Shahryar decides to marry a new wife
each day and kill her the following morning. When the supply of willing
ladies runs short Scheherazade, the grand vizier's daughter, offers
herself in marriage. On their wedding night Scheherazade's sister comes
into their bedroom and asks her to tell them a story. The king is
fascinated by Scheherazade's tale but dawn comes before it is done, so
he postpones her execution until the following dawn when she has
finished the story. The next night Scheherazade finishes the tale, but
starts on another, and another...and so the nights go on, through all
1001 tales.
The second frame, used in the stories
from Baghdad, is that of the Caliph Harun al' Rashid. Harun and his
foster brother Ja'far bin Yahya disguise themselves as ordinary citizens
and wander the streets of Baghdad. The caliph gets to understand the
troubles of his people, and each night they discover a new wonder or are
told a new tale. Whether the real Harun al' Rashid actually wandered the
streets of Baghdad is questionable. He was the fifth caliph in the
Caliphate of the Abbasids, who had become absolute rulers of Islam in
750 AD.
The essential traditional dishes dating
back to Abbasid times, are still served in Iraq today. Large plates of
fresh herbs, salads and pickles are served with every Arab meal and
would include spring onions, radishes, celery and lost of mint, parsley,
coriander and tarragon. You can buy the pickles in most Middle Eastern
shops, and you should make sure that you offer pickled cucumber, turnip,
beetroot, baby aubergine (eggplant), garlic, ginger and lemon. Most
dishes use a combination of spices, comprising black and white pepper,
cinnamon, cumin, cloves, coriander and turmeric. You should also be able
to buy dried limes, which give a quite delicious sweet-sour flavour to
the food.
Although the consumption of alcohol is
strictly forbidden by the Qur'an, wines may well have been served at
great banquets. Harun al' Rashis himself was known to be a devout Muslim
so his feats may have been 'dry', but there is a report of a banquet in
the time of his son at which beautiful women formed themselves into a
fountain down which wines were poured into a basin below where guests
were invited to fill their glasses.
Baghdad is situated on the river Tigris,
only 40 miles from the junction with the river Euphrates. Together with
its position astride the trading routes to the east, this location
accounted for much of its prosperity as a mercantile centre. However, it
also meant that there was always a liberal supply of fresh fish, much of
which is still cooked in riverside restaurants in the modern city.
Extract from Festive Feasts Cookbook,
copyright 2003 Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, published by The British
Museum Press
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