The Sultan's Feast

The Arabic culinary tradition burst onto the scene in the middle of the tenth century when al-Warraq compiled The Book of Dishes, a culinary treatise containing over 600 recipes. It would take another three and half centuries for cookery books to be produced in the European continent. Until then, gastronomic writing remained the sole preserve of the Arab-Muslim world, with cooking manuals and recipe books being written across the region, from Baghdad in the East to Muslim Spain in the West. A total of nine complete cookery books have survived from this time, containing nearly three thousand recipes. First published in the fifteenth century, The Sultan's Feast by the Egyptian Ibn Mubarak Shah features more than 330 recipes, from bread-making and savoury stews, to sweets, pickling and aromatics, as well as tips on a range of topics. This culinary treatise reveals the history of gastronomy in Arab culture.

Daniel L. Newman holds the Chair of Arabic Studies at the University of Durham, UK.