Sweet Delights From A Thousand And One Nights: The Story Of Traditional Arab Sweets
by Habeeb Salloum, Muna Salloum, Leila Salloum Elias
Buy on AmazonWhich dessert is named after the heroic third-century Queen Zenobia of Palmyra? Which luscious rice pudding shares its name with the eighth-century Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun? How does one make the perfect Baqlawah? Blending cookery with culture and recipes with history, this is the fascinating and delectable story of traditional Arab sweets. The authors here take us on a culinary journey across Iraq, Syria, Egypt and al-Andalus, presenting readers with clear and easy-to-recreate recipes from across the medieval Arab world. Filling the tables of caliphs and noblemen, these sumptuous desserts of saffron and rose water conjure the opulence and grandeur of the medieval Islamic world.…
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"Bake baklava? Forget it. Mine always comes out gummy and sodden, unlike the crisply perfumed trays I get UPS’d from Detroit’s Shatila Bakery. (There, now you have my best dinner party secret.) That unctuous alchemy of nuts and honey dates from the 10th century, when princes and caliphs wrote cookbooks, sometimes in rhyme. Habeeb, Muna and Leila Salloum’s recipes stretch from the Gulf States to the Levant to North Africa and include both contemporary and historical versions (although sheep fat is thankfully replaced by butter). They also trace the DNA of Arab sweets in food from around the world, including cannoli, tres leches cake and ice cream cones."
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