A Baghdad cookery book cover

A Baghdad cookery book

by Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Karīm

"This special issue of Petits Propos Culinaires is wholly devoted to a new translation of the text called, for convenience' sake, A Baghdad Cookery Book, that is, The Book of Dishes (Kitab al-Tabikh) by Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Muhammad b. al-Karim, the scribe of Baghdad, usually called Al Baghdadi. This thirteenth-century text was for a long while the only medieval Arab manuscript available in English thanks to the translation, in the 1930s, by A.J. Arberry which was subsequently re-published by Prospect Books in 2001 in Medieval Arab Cookery. In this new translation Charles Perry corrects many errors and misreadings that had crept into early transcriptions. Here we have spread before us, as if on a glorious sideboard, the immense wealth and ingenuity of cooking in the golden age of Arab civilisation. We can detect the influence of Persia, as well as echoes of the Bedouin life, and even the mark of the infidel Christian crusaders."--BOOK JACKET.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?