Pasta, Schichlik, Bourka (1823); NYU gets cookbooks

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LETTERS FROM THE CAUCASUS AND GEORGIA;
TO WHICH ARE ADDED THE ACCOUNT OF A JOURNEY INTO PERSIA IN 1812, AND AN ABRDIGED HISTORY OF PERSIA SINCE THE TIME OF NADIS SHAH
(No author on title page; NYPL has Fredrika Kudriavskaia von Freygang--ed.)
translated from the French
London: John Murray
1823

   The dates here are clearly 1811-1812.  The book was also published in Hamburg and St. Petersburg in 1816, according to the NYPL catnyp notes.  There are not a whole lot of works (in English) that are earlier.
   See prior posts on "pasta," "shashlik," and "burka."

Pg. 15:  ..._kisik_ (dung dried in the sun)...

Pg. 28 (1 Nov. 1811):  ...his lance in his hand, and cloaked in a _bourka_; which is a mantle of sheep's skin, usually turned to the quarter whence the wind blows.

Pg. 102 (26 Nov. 1811):  The food is light and agreeable; it consists of all kinds of pilaw, of fruit and sweetmeats; a soup called _bosbasch_, _schichlik_ or roast mutton, _airan_ or curdled milk and water, and all sorts of sherbet, which is made of sugar and water with the juice of various fruits.

Pg. 163 (26 Jan. 1812):  We were first helped to sweetmeats, and then to the Persian soup _bosbach_...

Pg. 164 (26 Jan. 1812):  One of these pilaws was to my taste delicious: they were all of different colours; some were made with mutton and chicken, come with chestnuts, others with meat roasted on a wooden spit, from which it acquired rather a smoky flavour; this excepted, the roast is a good thing, they call it _schichlik_.

Pg. 164:  Then throw in chestnuts, peeled almonds cut in two, some of those small raisins without seeds, which they call _kischmisch_, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamums.

Pg. 197 (14 Feb. 1812):  Millet is cultivated on the Caspian shores, and near the Terek, where it produces an hundred fold; of this the Armenians are particularly fond, and make with it a favourite mess called _pasta_.

Pg. 362:  Two Persians were the performers: one had a pie of curds and whey, which they call _mactane_, to sell...
(OED?  Did I spell this right?--ed.)

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MISC.

NYU GETS 8,000 COOKBOOKS--Before George Thompson took leave from NYU for parts unknown, he told me that there was a huge donation of cookbooks in the works.  It's in today's New York Times, 3 April 2002, Pg. F2, col. 3, "Gift Fattens a Cookbook Collection."  It's 8,000 cookbooks, 5,000 pamphlets, and thousands of letters.
   Cecily Brownstone, 92, was food editor of the Associated Press from 1947 to 1986.  The pamphlets and letters could be interesting.  Cookbooks are overrated/overexposed, though.  A lot of the material--15 editions of JOY OF COOKING, an 1815 copy of AMERICAN COOKERY by Amelia Simmons--we all know about.  Nevertheless, there are probably a few cookbooks that I don't know.  I'll go through them all in a few months.  I should talk to Ms. Brownstone about Clementine Paddleford and the history of food criticism, but I don't have an agent or a publisher and I make money only when I judge parking tickets.

FOODIES ADD SPICE TO ASME AWARDS--That's the title of a "Press Clips" article in this week's Village Voice, 9 April 2002, pg. 28.  Two food writers--Jonathan Gold of GOURMET and Alan Richman of GQ--are up for the "Reviews and Criticism" award of the American Society of Magazine Editors.  From col. 3:
   _GQ_'s Beiser sees a simpler reason for the appeal of food writing.  "Many Americans have done international traveling," he says, "so they enjoy good writing about the food experience, which is at the heart of travel."

(OK, special award to any food writer anywhere who's heard of anything that I've done--ed.)