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1 results

  • Chapter 10 - Digestive Syrups and After-Dinner Drinks

  • from Part II - The Borders of Pharmacology
  • Edited by Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Dionysios Stathakopoulos, University of Cyprus
  • Book:
    Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
    Published online:
    19 October 2023
    Print publication:
    02 November 2023, pp 320-335

  • Summary

    In the medieval Middle East, thinking about health and illness was closely connected to thinking about food and cooking. Can we know what happened in practice? Building on previous research, I will try to show how fine the line was between ‘food’ (or drinks) and ‘medicines’. I examine specific recipes appearing in two books composed in Mamluk-era Cairo – the pharmacopoeia Minhāj al-dukkān and an anonymous cookbook called Kanz al-fawāʾid – to show that some foods were also medicines, and some pharmaceutical preparations were largely food (or rather, snacks!). Comparing and contrasting not only the instructions appearing under the same headings, but also the appearance (or lack thereof) of medical indications, provides information as to which side of the divide given medico-culinary compounds were thought to fall. I also investigate to what extent Kanz al-fawāʾid contains recipes for the foods recommended in the dietetic advice found in some Cairo Genizah prescriptions.