Cereals, Bread & Society

Journalof the Economicand SoczalHistoryof the Orient,Vol.
XXX
CEREALS, BREAD AND SOCIETY

An essay on the staff of life in medievalIraq
BY
DAVID WAINES
(University of Lancaster)
Introductzon
Medieval Islamic society is a complex mosaic. Its general contours
are well defined although in places the design is obscured and else-
where the detail has perhaps been permanently obliterated. Among
the many intricate motifs of the mosaic, recent research has cast some
light upon one, the material life of the medieval Middle Eastern
world. The area is as yet undeveloped, doubtless owing in part to the
very nature of the enquiry, material civilization being, in Braudel's
words, "the repeated movements, the silent half forgotten story of
men and enduring realities, which were immensely important but
made so little noise')." The present essay is an exploration into one
of mankind's oldest routines: food preparation. Only one aspect of
this process, however, will concern us for the moment and that is with
certain cereal preparations, particularly with bread making.
Why bread and cereals? The answer lies partly in the period and
place focused upon in this study, that is urban Iraq in the ninth and
tenth centuries. Iraq was the fertile heartland of the Abbasid Empire
and its capital Baghdad the cosmopolitan core of the Caliphs' richly
1) Fernand Braudel, Capztalism and Material Lzfe, 1400-1800, Fontana Books

(London: Collins, 1974), xv For the subject of this study in general cf. J.D
Latham, "Some observations on the bread trade in Muslim Malaga (ca.
1200AD)", Journal of SemtzicStudies, 29/1 (1984) pp. 111-122; Naum Jasny, "The
daily bread of the ancient Greeks and Romans", OSIRIS, Vol. 4 (1950), pp. 227-
253, L.A. Moritz, Grain-mills and Flour in ClassicalAntiquity, Oxford, The Clarendon
Press (1958).
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256 DAVID WAINES
diverse and far flung domains. Baghdad was the center, par excel-
lence, of imperial politics and the high cultural tradition of Islam:
even during the decades of decline in the tenth century, its cultural
influence remained powerfully diffuse. Baghdad, too, displayed a
material culture which, in the culinary sphere, could be described in
Goody's phrase as "a truly differentiated cuisine, marking a society
that is stratified culturally as well as politically2)."
Here we attempt to examine in detail one commodity of these
'differentiated' food traditions which was a common denominator in
the diet of every individual of the urban populace, namely bread-the
staff of life. In this context, however, bread proves upon examination
to be a very complex commodity. First, there was not only one bread
for the rich and one for the poor, but rather many types of bread for
consumers in each class. Moreover, bread in the generic sense appe-
ars in this specific urban setting to reflect several historical traditions
of cereal preparation, although these are not always easily discernible
and the impact of each tradition was unequally absorbed into that
urban setting. The result is that bread seems to possess an unsuspect-
ed 'dynamic' character changing shape, as it were, from one cultural
and social context to another. Nevertheless, it is evident, for example,
that the most ancient tradition was that created by the neolithic revo-
lution, whether or not one accepts the view that cereal cultivation
originated in the land of the Tigris-Euphrates river valleys. Hence in
the following account we commence with the 'indigenous' influence
of early Mesopotamian bread traditions. A second influence is then
investigated, that of central Arabia, since it too lent to the context of
urban Iraq something more of its cereal-use traditions than just the
term for the commodity, khubz. Finally, we turn to a discussion of the
bread and cereal food traditions of Baghdad which mirror the quite
different political, social and cultural conditions by which these
earlier influences appeared in a transformed state. At the end, by
2) Jack Goody, Cooking, Cuiszne and Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1982), p. 98.
CEREALS, BREAD AND SOCIETY 257
traversing the road from Babylon to Baghdad via Mecca and

Medina, we hope to have demonstrated the richness of but one aspect
of a segment of medieval Middle Eastern material life which demands
further research-the preparation and consumption of food.
I
In the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the hero's god-created
counterpart, Enkidu, is a titan who lives among the animals of the
wild sharing their pasture and their water holes. When Gilagamesh
learns of the wild man's existence, he orders him brought to his city
of Uruk. Enkidu is trapped by the wiles of a courtesan, and thus
'tamed', she takes him to eat at a shepherd's table. Bread and strong
drink are placed before him but Enkidu can only stare embarrassed
at the fare. Accustomed to sucking the milk of wild animals, he had
not been taught the civilized ways of man. The courtesan urges him
to eat the bread, 'the staff of life' and drink the strong potion, 'the
custom of the land.' Having sated himself on both, Enkidu is fully
transplanted from the savage state3).
This episode fascinates for several reasons4). Most pertinent to the
present discussion is the association of cereal grains with civilized
society and indeed with the very basis of 'human' life. Once man had
evolved beyond his most primitive stage of hunting and gathering,
eating in a civilized as contrasted with a savage manner, was cultu-
rally linked with the consumption of cereal foods. Emmer and barley
had been the most widely cultivated cereals in Mesopotamia5) but by
the time of the appearance of the Gilgamesh tale (ca. 2000 BC), the
3) Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, Phoenix
Books (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1963), p. 29
4) It is, for example, perhaps the earliest example of a theme favoured by
anthropologists, namely the association, both ritual and verbal, between sex and
food; in this case, the domestication of the savage is accomplished by both means.
5) David and Joan Oates, "Early irrigation agriculture in Mesopotamia", in
Problemsin Economicand Social Archeologyed. by G de G Sieveking, I.H. Longworth
and K.E. Wilson (London: Duckworth, 1975), pp. 109-135.
258 DAVID WAINES
hardier barley had become more widespread than wheat owing to

the particular soil conditions of the alluvial plain and the flood regi-
mes of the Tigris-Euphrates rivers6). The Gilgamesh scene also al-
ludes to the two closely related processes of cereal preparation, baking
and brewing. A thick gruel, however slightly fermented, produced a
dough suitable for making bread while a thinner mash made a kind
of beer. Of the various grain preparations, bread alone epitomized
the central importance of cereals in the Mesopotamian diet. Bread
became synonymous with 'food' in general, associated with the basic
human activity of eating for existence and hence the 'staff of life').
Semitic vocabularies illustrate this association. For example, the
Akkadian word for 'bread' is akalu/aklu (and, by extension 'edibles'
and 'food') from the verbal root akdlu, 'to eat'. The Hebrew lehem
means 'bread' and 'food' and is derived from the root meaning 'to
feed a person' and 'to eat'. The medieval Arabic lexicon notes that
the word for 'life' (Cazsh)can also refer to anything necessary for the
sustenance of life, a staple food, including bread"). In many parts of
the modern Arab world Cazshis still the vernacular expression for
breadg).
The semantic association between bread = sustenance = life should
also be viewed in the wider context of Mesopotamian culture and
6) T Jacobsen and R. McC. Adams, "Salt and silt in ancient Mesopotamian

agriculture", Science, 128 (1958), 1251-8.
7) Similar associations between specific cereal preparations (not always bread)
and the notion of food itself are, of course, found in many cultures. Two different
examples from contemporary Africa are ubwali, a thick 'porridge' made of millet
and eaten among the Bemba, see Audrey Richards, Land, Labourand Diet in Northern
Rhodesia(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 47 and bundire,the beer of the
Lo Dagaa, see Goody, Cooking, p. 72.
8) On the Akkadian vocabulary I am indebted to both James Kinnear-Wilson
of Cambridge University and Dr Rosemary Ellison for their personal communica-
tions and also to Dr Ellison's unpublished PhD thesis, A Study of Diet in
Mesopotamia, 3000-600 BC, University of London, 1978. For the Hebrew, see
Koehler-Baumgartner's Lexiconin VeterisTestamentiLibros (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1958),
p. 478. The Arabic lexicon is the Lisdn al-CArab(Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, n.d.).
9) E.W Lane, An Arabic-EnglishLexicon (1863-93, reprinted Beirut: Librarie du
Liban, 1968), p. 2210; R. Dozy, Supplementaux DzctzonnairesArabes (1881-1927,
reprinted Beirut: Librarine zu Liban, 1968), Vol. 2, p. 194.
societylo). The chief economic organs of the city-state were first the
temple, paralleled later in dynastic times by the palace. Although
private property was recognized, each of these 'closed circuit' institu-
tions controlled extensive tracts of cultivated land and the labour
forces which worked them. The temple was, initially, the main centre
for the collection and distribution of agricultural surplus. It was also
a major food producer, not only for its own large and diverse person-
nel, but primarily for the gods whose care and feeding was a matter
of daily concern. Certain deities were especially venerated for their
power and control over the natural cycle of plant life and the earth's
fertility. Among the items deemed 'fit for the gods' was bread, baked
in the temple ovens as special prayers were uttered at each stage of
its preparation"). The temple, too, was the source of dole payments
to the poor and needy in troubled times.
The palace was the second major redistribution centre for agricul-
tural and other surpluses. The king's expenditures went on the
upkeep of a large household of dependents, a labour force required
for the construction and maintenance of irrigation canals and the
army. He extracted a number of levies including obliging the
peasantry to grind their grain at the royal milll2). It is significant that
one category of person exempt from military duty was the baker
because he was involved in essential work'3). As is evident from one
cuneiform passage, the baker was a highly respected professional,
being placed on the same level with the diviner, physician and
innkeeper; whereas the latter may be regarded as the city's first
'industrialist', the baker was its first shopkeeper providing the citi-
zenry with its daily bread and baked goods"4). Finally, bread was
10) The following paragraphs are based on these general accounts: Jacquetta
Hawkes, The First Great Civilizations (London: Penguin Books, 1977); W.H.F
Saggs, The Greatnessthat was Babylon (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1962); A. Leo
Oppenheim, AnczentMesopotamia (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1964)
11) Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, p. 191
12) Hawkes, Great Civilizatzons, p. 184.
13) Ibid., p. 194.
14) Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, p. 303
260 DAVID WAINES
sustenance for the dead as well as the living, nourishing the deceased
on their journey into the nether world; the evidence for these burial
customs might also be interpreted as fees paid in kind to officials by
the deceased's kinsmen for the privilege of a proper interment"5).
In short, bread production and consumption were part of a network
of rituals and symbols reflecting certain dominant relationships in the
city-state. The daily services in the temple represented its "carrying
out on behalf of society its obligation to work for the gods, to supply
them with their needs so that they themselves were freed from
toil"'6). The general populace did not participate in these day to day
activities; they did so on occasion of the monthly and seasonal festi-
vals, one of which was called the Eating of the Barley. The Great New
Year festival was essentially a celebration of revival, an expression of
gratitude (and a prayer) for the gods' continued kindly guardianship
of society's prosperity which depended upon the fertility of the land
and the life-giving support of the Twin Rivers. Bread was small
tribute in exchange for the more precious gift of life. If, however,
society was dependent upon the goodwill of the gods, ordinary citi-
zens were equally dependent upon the king and his army for their
security from external earthly forces; taxes paid for the peace which
assured the common man of his daily bread. Simply, it was a
common denominator in every diet from slaves to the gods themsel-
ves. It is scarcely surprising, then, that regardless of the individual's
status and rank, the lavishness or otherwise of his actual diet, bread
was seen symbolically as the food, or sustainer, of life and, indeed, of
the afterlife as well.
The technology of cooking bread undoubtedly underwent develop-
ment from the earliest times. The application of dry heat to dough,
or baking, apparently had to await a stage following the employment
of containers for boiling. The cylindrical shaped 'bee-hive' ovens of
the Sumerian temples give all the appearance of inverted pots;
15) Hawkes, Great Civilizations, p. 184, see also Heidel, Gilgamesh, pp. 150ff.
16) Hawkes, Great Civilizations, p. 226.
through a side opening fuel was inserted, a fire lit, and when the oven
was sufficiently hot the embers were raked out leaving the oven ready
for baking"). The Akkadian word for this utensil was tznuru(Hebrew,
tannur;Syriac, tannzird),the same word used in medieval and modern
Arabic. In the modern tanniir, the unbaked loaf is placed through the
open top against the inner side and above a grill-like partition se-
parating the bread from the fuel chamber beneath"'). It may be the
case that this was essentially the same kind of utensil which the
Romans introduced into Britain'"). Other changes in the technology
of bread making were connected with developments of the mill and
the sieve both of which functioned to reduce the impurities in the
flour. Otherwise these techniques have remained largely unaltered,
mainly in the rural areas of the Middle East, until the present day.
The unitary symbolic value of bread described above should not
convey the impression that it was, or indeed is, a simple commodity.
In her survey of bread making in several regions of the Mediterra-
nean, Balfet observes that restrictive definitions of bread are not justi-
fied since, even among the poor there are a number of varieties of
bread when it is a basic food baked at home"2). The five criteria which
together comprise the range of possible bread types probably would
have applied in the time of Gilgamesh. These are the dough (ferment-
ed or not), the shape and thickness of the loaves, the rigidity or pliabi-
lity of the loaf, its composition, and the additives used in its prepara-
tion. Although there may exist a single generic term for bread within
17) R.J Forbes, "Chemical, culinary and cosmetic arts", in A History of

Technology,ed. by C. Singer et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), Vol.
1, p. 273
18) See the excellent article of Armas Salonen, "Die ofen der alten
Mesopotamier", BaghdaderMitteilungen, 3 (1964) with accompanying photos of the
modern tannzr by J Kinnear-Wilson.
19) C. Anne Wilson, Food and Drink in Britain (London: Penguin Books, 1976),
p. 210.
20) H6lkne Balfet, "Bread in some regions of the Mediterranean area: a
contribution to the studies of eating habits", in Gastronomy:The Anthropologyoffood
andfood habits, ed. by Margaret L. Arnott (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), pp. 305-14,
especially at p. 308.
262 DAVID WAINES
a culture, each type will also have its own name. In the modern Arab
world, the complexity of bread vocabulary is seen by the fact that the
same preparation may often bear different regional vernacular names
even within the same country21).
It is generally thought that the ancient Egyptians 'discovered'
(whether by accident or design is a matter of opinion) the method of
preparing leavened bread around the middle of the third millenium
BC. Certainly by about 1200 BC, some thirty different types of bread
and cakes were known which gives an early hint as to the complexity
of this food item. Although the evidence from Egyptian tombs and
papyri may well indicate the emergence of a haute cuisine in the
culture, the variety of breads alone need not provide a decisive clue
to its presence. A similar, if not as extensive a list exists in the Sume-
rian/Akkadian vocabularies.
Concerning the composition of bread, apart from barley and the
scarcer availability of wheat, both millet and rye are mentioned by
scholars but it is uncertain how widespread was their cultivation22).
In this connection, a comparison of the archeological with the later
Arabic literary evidence suggests a further prospect. The Arabic
sources mention breads made from, among other substances, lentils
(Arabic: Cadas)and chick peas (Arabic: hummas), both of which were
indigenous to Mesopotamia. However, it is not at all clear whether
these pulses were used in bread making in Sumerian and Babylonian
times, although their appearance in the medieval Arabic sources
would indicate much older practices borrowed from local tradition23).
The bread that Enkidu broke at the shepherd's table was probably a
small, flat, unleavened loaf made of coarse cereal (or pulses?) and
cooked on the hot stones of an open fire or in its ashes. The privi-
leged, on the other hand, would have been able to bake a leavened
21) The permanent exhibition of the Egyptian Agricultural Museum in Cairo

provides an excellent display of breads from ancient to modern times and where
the complexity of bread and its terinology can well be appreciated.
22) David and Joan Oates, "Early irrigation agriculture", p. 117
23) See Infra, p. 26 and footnote 89 for the sources.
loaf from the more refined (and scarcer) wheat flour as well as having
access to a wider range of additives. The possible variety of breads
of different constituents should not lead to the conclusion that they
indicate a genuine high cooking tradition in Mesopotamian culture.
We may better able to reach some judgement on this point by com-
paring bread use in Mesopotamia with that in central Arabia which
forms the discussion of the following section.
II
The contrast between Mesopotamia and central Arabia in the
seventh century AD could hardly have been greater in terms of grain
production and related traditions of cereal and bread use. The penin-
sula itself was a study in strident contrasts determined by the presence
or absence of water. Two extremes existed side by side, the rain fed
outer fringes and the arid regions of the centre. The fertile, moun-
tainous, south-west corner, the Yemen, lay adjacent to the most
extensive desert in the world, the Empty Quarter. The economic base
of the once renowned Yemeni city-states of the pre-Islamic era had
been trade and agriculture of which the many varieties of cereals were
a vital part. Their political decay and economic decline notwithstand-
ing, the Yemen was the only corner of the peninsula where cereal
cultivation continued be be significant24). The wastes of Arabia
Deserta, on the other hand, permitted not even a remotely similar
degree of civilization. The beduin and his camel were symbols of the
only mode of life possible in this harsh environment. The landscape,
however, was not one of unrelieved desolation. Running northward
from the Yemen to Syria along the westward edge of the interior
desert zone, a ribbon of oases supported sedentary populations such
as those of Mecca and Medina in the Hijaz. Other oases were tucked
away in the narrow valleys of the dried or seasonal river beds where
24) R.B. Serjeant, "The cultivation of cereals in medieval Yemen", in Arabian

Studies, ed. by R.B. Serjeant and R.L. Bidwell, I (1974), pp. 25-7
264 DAVIDWAINES
vegetation was the uncertain bounty of unpredictable rain. Political

expediency and economic necessity kept nomad and sedentary ever
within each other's sphere of interest. Their diet and nourishment,
therefore, reflected the combined but meagre resources of their
respective ways of life.
In the food culture of these peoples of western central Arabia, cereals
did not hold the same importance as dates and camel's milk25). In the
higher mountain elevations, or where perennial wells existed in the
plains, barley was cultivated to some extent, possibly supplemented
in places by wheat, sorghum and millet. Rice and quantities of these
last three grains also found their way into the Hijaz from Egypt and
the Yemen26). The nomad obtained grain through barter with the
oasis communities although some tribes may have occasionally
cultivated small plots of cereal for their own use given a season's
adequate supply of water. To what use were these cereals put and in
what manner were they prepared?27)
It is evident that among the settled population of the Hijaz, when
bread was eaten it was most commonly made from barley28). A loaf
at mealtime, however, could not be taken for granted. It is said that
only at one of his wedding feasts did the Prophet Muhammad offer
bread to the guests29). On one occasion Muhammad was himself the
guest of a tailor; doubtless thinking to honour the Prophet, the tailor
served a vegetable soup with bits of dried meat in it accompanied by
25) "Djazirat al-cArab", Encyclopaediaof Islam, New Edition, Vol. 1, pp. 540-
26) al-Moqaddasi, Descrzptzo Imperii Moslemzci, Bibliotheca Geographorum
Arabicorum, Part III, Ed. by M.J de Goeje (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1906), p. 104.
27) If it is granted that, prior to modern times, the routines of food provision
in central Arabia were dictated by an unceasingly severe and impoverished
environment, one can with due caution, augment the scanty Information in the
medieval Arabic sources with material from the more acute European observers
who travelled in the peninsula and who have enriched the ethnographic record of
its people, data which is especially important for the Beduin population.
28) A.J Wensinck, Concordanceet indices de la tradition musulmane(Leiden: E.J
Brill, 1936-39, reprint, Beirut, n.d.), see under entry for khubz, especially Bukhari,
buyu-i, 14 and Tirmidh-, zuhd, 38.
29) Maxime Rodinson, "Ghidha-", Encyclopaediaof Islam, New Edition, Vol. 2,
p. 1058. The source is a tradition from the collection of Ahmad b. Hanbal.
bread"3). The following tradition may only reflect exceptional

circumstances: finding his household without sufficient grain for the
evening meal, Muhammad is said to have mortgaged his armour to
a Jew in Medina in return for some barley. A companion helped out
by bringing the family barley bread over which dissolved fat had been
poured31). Times apparently improved, yet neither Muhammad nor
his family ate wheat bread three successive days throughout his entire
sojourn in Medina32). In any case the bread could not have been of
high quality; the flour was not sifted-it is said that Muhammad had
never seen a sieve-but rather the grain was ground and then blown
to separate it from the coarse husks33).
Bread types included a thick, unleavened flat bread, qurs34), and
the larger, very thin loaf, muraqqiq35) but it is not known what
additives they contained other than possibly salt36). Bread was usually
eaten with a condiment ('udm) however meagre, such as vinegar, oil
or butter"3), for to do without was considered to be living at less than
subsistence level38); meat and dates were more highly regarded as
accompaniments.
Several other cereal preparations, especially barley, are known.
One dish was a favorite of some of Muhammad's companions follow-
ing the Friday communal prayer. It consisted of beet root (silq)
boiled in water with barley, but without fat added39). A second dish,
30) Sahzh al-Bukhari, Arabic with English trans. by Muhammad Khan (9 vols.,
Chicago: Kazi Publication, 1977), Vol. 3, p. 173, chapter on buyuc
31) Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 161.
32) Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 242.
33) Ibid.
34) Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 224.
35) Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 227
36) John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia (London, 1829; reprint Beirut:
Librarie du Liban, 1972), p. 34, where he records that salt was sold by corn
dealers. "Sea salt is collected near Djidda (Jedda) and is a monopoly in the hands
of the sherif. The inhabitants of Mecca prefer rock salt, which is brought thither
by the Beduins from some mountains In the neighbourhood of Tayf."
37) Rodinson, "Ghidhi'", p. 1058; Lane, Lexicon, p. 36.
38) Lzsan al-CArab,under root qfr
39) SahIh al-Bukhart, Vol. 2, p. 29, kztdbal-jumac
266 DAVID WAINES
called kha.tffa,was made from ground barley, presumably boiled, over

which butter was squeezed from a small, round, leather butter
skin4o). One tradition, related by CA'isha, the Prophet's wife,
mentions two well known dishes usually prepared separately but in
this instance eaten together. Talbina was a kind of soup made from
flour or bran to which honey was often added; this was then poured
over the second dish called tharfd,which was made from meat cooked
in a broth to which crumbled bread was added. In the tradition this
combination is associated with the occurance of death in CA'isha's
family. Each dish is praised by the Prophet: talbfnabecause it helped
soothe a patient's heart and relieve him of sadness, a quality
appropriate to a time of bereavement; tharfdis compared with CA'isha
herself, the most excellent of women, and hence the superiority of
tharfdover all other food41). Both tharfdand another well known dish
called sawiq, or parched barley meal, later found their way into the
medieval culinary treatises42).
The beduin's use of cereals, unlike that of the sedentary, is by no
means evident from the early Arabic sources. Yet, a careful survey
based upon the travel accounts of Europeans like Niebuhr,
Burckhardt, Doughty and Musil does permit one to argue with some
conviction that the grain diet of the nineteenth century nomad was
not unlike that of his settled forefather in the seventh century43).
40) Ibzd., Vol. 7, p. 262, kztdbal-atCima.

41) Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 242.
42) Infra, p. 21
43) The various travel accounts provide data on the Arabs' use of different
grains which could indicate either regional or 'class' preferences or changes in taste
over time, both probably dictated by availability and cost. Niebuhr, for example,
makes the general remark that the common people in Arabia eat a bad bread made
of sorghum (durra) preferring it to barley bread which they consider too light.
Burckhardt notes that wheat was little used by the beduin while, a century later,
Musil observed that the more prosperous Rwala had camel loads of wheat on their
journeys but the poorer members used white sorghum (durra bazda)which cost half
as much. Burckhardt claimed that in Jedda the common man could not afford
wheat and bought instead sorghum and barley; in his time, too, the preferred rice
among the populace of Jedda was no longer Egyptian but that brought In as ship's
ballast from India.
In the first place, there is the apparent preference for gruel and
porridge rather than bread as a daily food. Musil states that the
Rwala beduin rarely baked bread. Their chief food, in addition to
milk, bore the interesting name of Cazsh,the Arabic for 'life', which
recalls the life = sustenance = bread equation noted above44). Here it
is not bread, but rather flour, water and salt boiled into a thick paste
with sour camel's milk added if the supply were sufficient. It was
eaten almost daily for supper45). The interest in the name of this dish
is again the identification of a cereal food with a metaphor for
sustenance and life, despite the negligible part that cereal played in
the beduins' own economy. If anything, it perhaps reveals the extent
of the nomad's dependence upon the cultivator for his existence,
although he would rationalize this relationship as the cultivator's
obligation to supply him with food46). Or have we here instead an
obscure survival of the ancient pre-Islamic pagan ritual of meal-
offerings to the idols47)?
Secondly, though bread was consumed less frequently by the
beduin than the town dweller, in both societies it was a mark of
honour and status to serve it. The medieval expression, 'bread eater'
(dkil al-khubz), was an epithet implying some affluence48). In the
present century Musil noted that the Rwala served bread mainly to
guests and a person able to entertain with it was praised as a 'master
of bread' (raci al-khubz)49).Some Prophetic traditions dealing with the
treatment of guests mention the preparation of bread as part of the
44) Supra, p. 4.
45) Alois Musil, The Manners and Customsof the Rwala Beduins (New York, 1928),
p. 90, 92.
46) Ibid., p. 90 A similar observation is made by John Lewis Burckhardt in his
Notes on the Beduins and Wahabys(London, 1829, reprint London: Johnson, 1967),
p. 239
47) W Robertson Smith, The Religzonof the Semites(New York: Meridian Books,
1956), p. 225, who suggests that such offerings were a similar but more primitive
form of the kind made in Babylonian temples.
48) Charles Pellat, "Khubz", Encyclopaediaof Islam, New edition, Vol. 5, p. 41.
49) Musil, Rwala Beduins, p. 92; Lzsan al-CArab,under root khbz.
268 DAVID WAINES
fare5o). The offering of bread, therefore, was part of the elaborate

Arab code of hospitality which, despite criticisms of its motives or the
excesses to which it was sometimes carried, nevertheless did provide
for many who might otherwise have gone hungry51).
It is evident, too, that throughout central Arabian society in
Muhammad's day there was no differentiated culture of cooking, no
high and low culinary traditions which were to be found later in
Abbasid Iraq. The economic base of Arabia was too narrow and,
although tribal society displayed differences in wealth and status,
wealth was precarious and the obligations of status and the norms of
hospitality provided a vital redistributive function. Burckhardt's
remark on beduin eating customs52) would have applied as aptly to
the settled and nomad populations of the seventh century:
The richest sheikh lives like the meanest of his Arabs; they both eat
every day the same dishes and in the same quantity and never partake
of any luxury unless on the arrival of a stranger when the host's tent
is open to his friends.
Commenting on their diet in general Burckhardt observed that "if an

Arab has a sufficiency of food, he cares little about its quality, or
about those luxuries which we call 'pleasures of the table"'53). To
which one might add the laconic remark of the tenth century traveller
and geographer, al-Muqaddasi, who said that "the people of this
region are both frugal and emaciated, they are nourished by so little
food.54).
Viewed from medieval Baghdad the food traditions of the Arab
would have seemed provincial and rustic; however, as we shall see,
one of the features of the haute cuisine of Baghdad was that it incor-
50) Sahih Muslim, trans. by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi (4 vols., Lahore: Muhammad
Ashraf, 1976), Vol. 3, p. 1123, kztdbal-ashriba.
51) A brief discussion of the comparison between the pagan and early Islamic
notions of generosity may be found in Toshihiko Izutso, Ethzco-ReligzousConceptsin
the Quran (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966), pp. 75-83
52) Burckhardt, Notes on the Beduins, pp. 72-73
53) Ibzd., p. 187
54) al-Moqaddasi, DescrzptzoImperii Moslemzcz, p. 105
porated and transformed "the regional food of peasants and the cook-
ing of exotic foreigners15)." Prosperous households in Baghdad were
not loathe to serve up certain of the Arab's 'peasant' dishes.
In the sphere of domestic life, it was exclusively the woman who
prepared the meals for the whole household; when bread was
required, she ground the grain, kneeded the dough and cooked it.
Bakers had no separate or special standing in society and 'public
bakeries' as distinct from the use of a communal oven must have been
the exception56).
Finally, the travellers' accounts provide descriptions of bread
making, techniques which bear the mark of great antiquity. The most
primitive method, employed by the beduin, was to roll the dough into
balls and cook it covered with the ashes of a camel dung fire"5).
Doughty saw hasty bread cooked under the embers of a fire of dried
acasia wood58). Musil records a similar method but where a second
fire was lit over the dough placed in, but not covered by, hot embers.
Sometimes a circle of stones was heated, the fire removed, the dough
placed on the stones, then covered with the glowing ashes until
cooked59). This manner of making (unleavened) bread was called
malla, or 'roasted' bread, malla referring to the mixture of hot ash and
embers60). A large thin loaf could be cooked on a concave iron plate
(sda, inverted and supported on stones over a fire, the dough being
placed on the convex side61). In the towns of the eighteenth century,
Niebuhr saw ovens "like ours", which is not especially helpful
although some utensil similar to or identical with the Mesopotamian
55) Goody, Cooking, p. 105

56) On the role of women in bread making see Musil, Rwala Beduins, p. 91.
57) C. Niebuhr, Travels throughArabia, trans. by Robert Heorn (1792; reprint,
Beirut: Librarle du Liban, n.d.), Vol. 2, p. 232; Burckhardt, Notes on the Beduins,
p. 58.
58) Charles M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888; London: Jonathan
Cape, 1964), Vol. 2, p. 239
59) Burckhardt, Notes on the Beduins, p. 58.
60) Ibn Duraid, Jamharat al-Lughah (4 vols., Baghdad: Dar al-Muthanna, n.d.,
reprint of Hyderabad edition 1925-33), Vol. 3, p. 175; Lane Lexicon, p. 4270.
61) Musil, Rwala Beduins, p. 91, Burckhardt, Notes on the Beduins, p. 60.
270 DAVID WAINES
tannurwas almost certainly used in Muhammad's day62). A portable

oven was seen in use by Niebuhr on board ship in the Red Sea. The
grain was first broken and bruised between two stones, one concave,
the other convex. From the flour, dough was made and divided into
small cakes. The 'oven' was a glazed earthenware pot in which a
charcoal fire was kindled; the dough was laid against the sides of the
pot without removing the coals and then eaten half cooked and hot63).
Such a versatile utensil possibly found its way into a number of
settings, including the beduin camp.
A word now, to conclude this section, on the generic term for
bread, khubz, which embraced all types mentioned above regardless
of shape, size, ingredients or preparation64). The word occurs once
in the Koran (12:36) and is listed by Jefferey as a loan from the
Ethiopic verbal root meaning 'to bake'65). The single Arabic lexeme
khabaza (or, ikhtabaza), meaning literally 'to make khubz', embraces
what in English, at least, would be considered two, or possibly three,
separate cooking processes, although in English there exists a seman-
tic overlap between them66). The Arabic term could properly refer to
'roasting' (i.e. malla bread), 'grilling' (when using the iron plate, sdj),
and 'baking' (in an tannur).
In the Arabic literary corpus of the Abbasid period, khubz was the
transported 'high culture' term for bread in contrast with the variety
of vernacular or dialect expressions which probably continued their
62) Wensinck, Concordance,see entries under khubz and tannuir

63) Niebuhr, Travels, Vol. 2, pp. 231-232.
64) Pellat, "Khubz", p. 41
65) Arthur Jeffery, The ForezgnVocabularyof the Quran(1938; reprint, Lahore: al-
Biruni, 1977), pp. 121-2, where he states that "bread is an uncommon luxury to
the Arabs but literally the staff or life among the Abyssinlans and therefore a word
much more likely to have been borrowed by the Arabs than from them... It was
probably an early borrowing into Arabic, for the root has become well naturalized
and many forms have been built from it."
66) For comparison, a useful discussion of English cooking vocabulary analyzed
in terms of structural semantics is that of Adrienne Lehrer, "Semantic cuisine",
Journal of Linguistics, 5 (1969), pp. 39-55
independent existence67). An interesting change has occured here.

Bread as a metaphorfor 'food' in general, or 'life', has been displaced
by a lexical item for a processof converting one material, grain, into
another, a cooked food, bread.
The significance of this displacement is perhaps best related to the
transformation of the nascent Arab-Muslim commonwealth of Mecca
into a cosmopolitan world empire in the Abbasid period from about
750 AD onwards. In the new Abbasid order, cereals were
acknowledged as fundamentally important for reasons of imperial
expediency in the form of taxes and tribute. As a consequence, from
the perspective of the Abbasid high cultural tradition, the old
Mesopotamian metaphorical and ritual associations of bread were
displaced as irrelevant and irreverant. While continuing in the old
Arab tribal context to be linked with norms of hospitality, in the
context of the new high culture, khubzmore appropriately denoted the
simple processed product of its primary material, namely grain. And
grain was, chiefly, a secular symbol of political and economic power.
The symbol was derived from the continuous striving by actors
within the power profile to exercise control over or to compete for
access to part or all of the agricultural base of the Iraqi heartland of
the empire.
Let us now briefly tie together one or two threads of the foregoing
argument. The Arab tribal food tradition, described in this section,
displayed a rhythm of monotony dictated by the endless struggle to
secure a sufficient subsistence in order to smooth, over the long run,
the peaks and troughs of relative plenty and want. By contrast in the
Mesopotamian tradition, adequate resources of fertile land, water
and labour provided a surplus for the support of a temple-palace elite.
In each of these traditions bread signified rather different things. In
67) A parallel case is that of present day Egypt where many regional bread
varieties are designated by words almost certainly of Coptic origin, such as
mal'abut, zalut, bataw and so on, while the 'high' tradition generic term has
remained khubz. I am indebted to Dr Elizabeth Sartain (Sakkur) for drawing my
attention to this point.
272 DAVIDWAINES
the former, the Arab, breaking bread was a communal act of sharing
which met the immediate needs of the assembled company; in the
latter, breaking bread was an act rooted in religious belief and ritual
enacted by the few on behalf of all as a favour to the gods to ensure
the continued renewal and hence the survival of the whole
community. However, in neither tradition was bread either a part of
or an indicator of the presence of a haute cuisine. In the Arab tradi-
tion, everyone ate to live and in the Mesopotamian some lived to feed
the gods. As yet, society and the economy had not reached the stage
where a lot of people could live for the pleasure of eating. When this
had occured in the urban setting of Abbasid society, bread in itself
could be seen as a reflection of a differentiated cuisine.
III
During the intervening centuries between the decline of the late

Babylonian and Assyrian dynasties (600-500 BC) and the Abbasid
foundation of Baghdad (760 AD), the production and consumption
of bread was affected by several developments. First was the intro-
duction of new grains. Rice, for example, was probably brought from
the east sometime during the first millenium BC, possibly even as late
as the Sassanian Persian period (from about 220 AD)68). A crop
requiring much moisture and long hours of sunshine, it was well
suited to the environment of southern Iraq. It has been suggested that
sorghum, too, was a Sassanian contribution, introduced between the
fifth and seventh centuries69). A Persian connection with bread
making is also seen in the names of particular types which survived
into Islamic times7O). It is probable that sometime during the mille-
nium preceeding the rise of Islam wheat cultivation was again esta-
68) David and Joan Oates, "Early irrigation agriculture", p. 117

69) Andrew Watson, "A medieval green revolution" in The Islamic Middle East
700-1900- Studies in Economic and Social History, ed. by A.L. Udovitch (Princeton:
Darwin Press, 1981), p. 31.
70) Infra, p. 23
blished as a significant crop; tax rolls from the early ninth century AD
reveal that under the Abbasids wheat had become nearly as impor-
tant as barley"). Apart from a few details concerning Sassanian court
cuisine72), it is difficult to form any sound judgement as to how
diffuse its influence was among other well-off sections of the popula-
tion. It seems safer to say that the real beneficiaries of these near
eastern court traditions were the Arabs, the creative inheritors if not
the sole originators of a flourishing culinary culture.
A second and more momentous development occured in the early
Islamic centuries (700-1000 AD) and which was to have an impact
upon the diet of all classes of society. This process has been described
as a 'medieval green revolution'73). This involved the introduction
and diffusion of a number of food and fiber crops, notably from
India, into the eastern Islamic world and thence toward the western
part. Iraq was the gateway of this diffusion to the west. The implica-
tions of this development for bread making in Iraq lay in areas other
than the direct benefit derived from the appearance of other new food
crops. First, farming practicies were radically altered with the
opening of a new agricultural season in the summer months which
meant that previously idle land and labour were now made produc-
tive. The more intensive use of land, however, depended upon an
artificial irrigation system which by late Sassanian times had fallen
into a state of disrepair. The restoration of the systems was begun by
Muslim governors of the province from early in the eight century.
Not only did traditional crops such as wheat flourish once again, but
new strains of both old and new crops abounded giving even greater
flexibility than before to the age-old rotation methods.
71) David Waines, "The third century internal crisis of the Abbasids", Journal
of the Social and Economic History of the Orient, 20 (1977), p. 292, 294.
72) Arthur Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen, 1936), pp.
477-79
73) This paragraph is based upon the material in Watson, "A medieval green
revolution" and his earlier article, "The Arab agricultural revolution and its diffu-
sion, 700-1100", Journal of Economic History, 34 (1974), pp. 8-35
274 DAVIDWAINES
Concomitant with these developments in Iraq was the increase in

number and density of rural settlements. Urban areas, too, dramati-
cally expanded proving that the countryside could export an increa-
sing surplus of foodstuffs. Baghdad, and later Samarra, probably
supported populations larger than any other contemporary cities
outside China.
Just as everywhere the countryside lived off its harvests and the
cities lived off the surplus, Baghdad was more fortunate than many
of its contemporaries in being able to draw a surplus directly from its
own fertile hinterland. In the early Abbasid period the single most
important source of both cereals and imperial revenues was the
Sawad, the districts adjacent to and stretching south of Baghdad
between the Tigris and Euphrates rives. The caliphs invested in its
cultivation and in the construction of mills and grain stores both for
their own and the public's use. In times of political stability and
economic prosperity the great market quarters of the capital were
replete with goods. Nonetheless, a constant logistical problem of
government was keeping the city's enormous population, virtually a
cross section of the empire, adequately fed. Cereals were very much
a political commodity; the movement of grain prices was a kind of
barometer of price movements in general and shortages always
threatened to cause riots in the streets. Except in times of crisis we
are rather ill informed as to how the majority managed; in those black
moments they fared badly.
The apex of power in Abbasid society, the Caliph's court, was the
centre of a number of intricate, interlocking networks which made
frequent, insatiable demands upon the resources of the imperial
treasury. Unlike the urban masses, for this powerful leisure class
conditions had to deteriorate considerably to shake its accustomed
complacency. It was this class, comprising courtiers, officers,
bureacrats, wealthy scholars, merchants and craftsmen, which while
seeking to imitate the fashions and whims of the Caliph's court,
helped set the tone of conspicuous consumption for which Baghdad
in its golden days was renowned. By its tolerant curiosity and
patronage, this class also contributed to the emergence of a

flourishing humanist literary tradition which made Baghdad "the
market to which the wares of the sciences and the arts were brought,
where wisdom was sought as a man seeks after his stray camels and
whose judgement of values was accepted by the whole world."-74) Not
only values but is tastes as well were accepted throughout urban Iraq
and far beyond, in other provincial centres which, like satellites,
played their part in the evolving cultural system. The literary move-
ment reveals how food and drink, the culinary arts, the constitution
of a proper diet and the etiquette of the table were all treated as essen-
tial to a cultured individual's education. Gradually a class had
formed which constituted what Freeman argues is a prerequisite for
the establishment of a genuine cuisine, "a sizable corps of critical,
adventuresome eaters, not bound by the tastes of their native
region", whose attitudes, moreover, embodied another crucial trait,
that of giving "first place to the real pleasure of consuming food
rather than to its purely ritual significance"75).
These factors are clearly necessary for a cuisine to emerge; they
were absent from the traditions of early Mesopotamia and central
Arabia which we have already examined. In themselves, however,
they are not sufficient to explain the creation of a genuinely differen-
tiated cuisine in the Abbasid period. The decisive development seems
to have been the impact of the 'green revolution' and its handmaiden,
the great commercial expansion which opened up and joined two
continents, Asia and Africa, in a kind of Islamic common market. It
is against this background that some of the patterns of bread (and
cereal) use in urban Abbasid society may be discussed.
The Caliph's palace complex overlooking the Tigris river was a self
contained city within Baghdad itself, providing every conceivable
74) Quoted in H.A.R. Gibb, Arabic Literature (2nd. Ed., Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1963), p. 46.
75) Michael Freeman, "Sung", in Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropologzcaland
Historical Perspectives, ed. by K.C. Chang (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1977), pp. 144-45
276 DAVID WAINES
service for his enormous household. Unfortunately next to nothing is

known of the daily catering arrangements of this establishment. That
they were costly cannot be doubted; for comparison, the expenses of
the kitchens and bakeries (both private and general) ran to the order
of ten thousand times the monthly wage of an ordinary worker76).
Nevertheless, there is extant among the wealth of literary material
a contemporary 'cookbook' which portrays a milieu of material ease
and gastronomic sophistication. The author, or perhaps better the
compiler of this work, was one Muhammad al-Muzaffar b. Nasr b.
Sayyar al-Warraq who, as his name indicates, was a bookseller with
a passion for good food77). He introduces the work by addressing an
anonymous patron in these words, "You asked that I write a book
for you, collecting for you therein the many kinds of foods prepared
for kings and caliphs, notables and chiefs." True, many of its recipes
are cited as favorites of important court personnages including
caliphs and princes and some insight is gained thereby of the royal
kitchen and table. The general tenor of the work, however, reflects
the culinary interests of a much broader social stratum. We may
imagine that we are entering here the prosperous if not lavish but well
provisioned household of a merchant. The following paragraphs are
based upon those sections in al-Warrfiq's work which deal with bread
making and it first affords us a glimpse of the kitchen and the utensils
used in the process.
76) On the kitchen and bakery expenses, see Hilal al-Sabi, Kitdb al-Wuzara'
(Cairo: Isa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1958), p. 20; for workers' wages, see E. Ashtor,
"The diet of the salaried classes in the medieval Near East", Journal of Asan History,
4 (1970), p. 9, and further, Claude Cahen, "Quelques problems economiques et
fiscaux de l'Iraq Buyide d'apres un traite de mathematiques" Annales de l'Instztut
des Etudes Orientales, 10 (1952), p. 332 and 344, also Muhammad Abdul Jabbar Beg,
"A contribution to the economic history of the Caliphate: A study of the cost of
living and the economic status of artisans in Abbasid Iraq" Islamzc Quarterly, 16
(1972), especially pp. 156-167
77) Kitdb al-Tabikh wa Islah al-Aghdhyadtal-Ma'kuladt(Oxford: Bodleian Library,
Huntington, 187). Habib Zayyat drew attention to this work and provides a
complete table of its contents in his article "Fann al-tabakh wa islah al-atcima",
al-Machrzq, 41 (1947), pp. 1-26.
The dough was prepared in a bowl (jafna) of walnut wood, then

removed with a metal scraper (mihakk) and wrapped in a fine cloth
before baking. The divided loaves were then rolled out on a large, flat
marble slab (lawh) with a rolling pin (shawbaq), a small one for
ordinary sized bread (qurs), and a larger one for the very thin bread
(riqdq); the best quality pin was made of Cunnabwood because the
dough did not stick easily to it. A goose feather brush was used for
coating the unbaked loaf in certain preparations. A sznnadra was used
for removing the hot bread from the oven and a mihrakfor adjusting
or raking out the embers of the fire. Ideally, the oven (tannur) should
be located in an elevated position in the kitchen owing to the odours
and smoke issuing from it. Leaven was kept in a wooden container
(mahlab) and the flour in a sack with a meaure (mikydl) inside.
These are but some of the utensils found in a well run kitchen
setting it apart from that of a poor household where, for lack of uten-
sils, operations such as shaping the loaves would have been done by
hand and the bread would have been 'roasted' rather than baked.
Moreover, at least in our 'typical' merchant's household, home made
bread was preferred to taking the dough to a professional baker for
cooking. As one market inspector's manual puts it, "most people
(sic: middle class?) avoid eating bread baked in the market""8). The
very best quality flour (huwward) was finely ground from thoroughly
washed wheat and purchased from millers in the market rather than
ground in the home; the flour of course was used for preparations
other than bread. Depending on the quality of fineness of the market
flour, however, it seems that a final sieving was often necessary before
the dough was made. Concerning the leaven, sourdough was perhaps
the most commonly used but another contemporary Arabic source
cites a method which recalls one mentioned by Pliny"9). Ibn
78) Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Macdlim al-Qurba ft Ahkam al-Hisba, ed. with partial
English trans. by R. Levy (Gibb Memorial Series; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1938), p. 90
79) Pliny, Natural History, with an English trans. by H. Rackham (10 vols.,
London: Heinemann, 1938-63), Vol. 5, pp. 252ff.
278 DAVIDWAINES
Wahshiyya mentions that raisins could be soaked in water for a day

and a night, the rest of its 'strength' then squeezed out, a part of the
resulting potion being added to the water use to kneed the dough8?).
Of the several bread recipes which al-Warraq compiled for his
cookbook all, with one exception, were leavened wheat flour breads
baked in a tannir. Ingredients and preparations are similar, the chief
differences seeming to lie in dough consistency, and the shape, size
and thickness of the loaf. One type, called Nabatean water bread, was
made from fine wheat flour, leaven (khamfr), salt and water so as to
produce a very dry dough. The tannuirwas first wiped down with a
cloth and then heated to a moderate degree. Each round, flat loaf was
coated lightly with sesame or other fine oil and placed in the oven.
Moisture was imparted to the baking bread by sprinkling water upon
it while controlling the rate of the oven's cooling by closing its bottom
aperture, the 'eye' (Cazn)of the oven. The baked loaves were then
placed in layers in a moist cloth. The name of this bread presumably
derives from some water source which was deemed especially pure"8).
Another dry dough bread, khubz macrtik,was so-called because of
the action of vigorously kneeding the dry leavened dough of each loaf
in oil before baking. Two kinds of large, thin riqaq are mentioned,
labaq and jurmadzl, the latter being considerably the larger. Another
type, bardzidkhaj,differed from the above in containing borax (bawraq);
a bread called Abu Hamza, after its creator, did not contain borax
but was similar to bardazidhaj in thinness82). Next, two recipes are
given for breads with sweetening additives. A dry flat square shaped
'cake' (Arabic: kack), contained, apart from leaven and salt, sesame
flour, walnut oil, sugar, saffron and rose water. The second,
apparently a favourite of the Caliph al-Mahdi's son Ibrahim, who
80) Ibn Wahshlyya, Kitdb al-Fildha al-Nabatfyya, Part 3 (Oxford: Bodleian

Library, Huntington 340), folios 50v, 51r. On the author and his works See T
Fahd, "Ibn Wahshiyya", Encyclopaediaof Islam, New Edition, Vol. , pp. 963-965
81) al-Warraq, folio, 23v The use of pure water in bread making is recom-
mended by Ibn Wahshiyya, folio, 51r
82) Ibid., folios 24r-25v
BREADAND SOCIETY
CEREALS, 279
was himself an expert cook, contained sugar and walnut oil with
sesame seeds sprinkled on each loaf. The one recipe for unleavened
bread, called lawzani', was cooked on a tabaq, a metal plate rather like
the beduin sdj.
Finally, the piece de resistance of these recipes was khubzal-qznnanz.
A soft dough was prepared and brushed thoroughly with rose water.
Next a thin glass, heat resistant vessel with a wide mouth was well
coated with sesame or other fine oil and the dough placed inside. The
vessel was then placed on the brick floor of the oven and baked until
a needle inserted into the dough could be cleanly withdrawn. The
vessel was then broken, the baked loaf having been moulded by its
shape. The bread could, if desired, be covered with a kind of paste
made from pure milk, mastic, sugar and rose water.
All of these bread recipes mirror the comfortable status of the
households in which they were prepared; from the range of kitchen
utensils with the hint that there were domestic servants present to use
them, to the ingredients such as fine wheat flour and sesame oil (all
beyond the resources of poorer families), to the extravagance of
smashing the glass mould in which bread was baked. For the well-to-
do moreover, bread was but an accompaniment to a meal of several
dishes while among the poor bread was a mainstay, accompanied by
only meagre condiments.
What kind of bread, then, did the other half consume? A clue to
the answer of this question is found in al-Warraq and also in a work
of the illustrious contemporary physician Abu Bakr al-Razi (d. 923
or 932 AD), known in Europe as Rhazes. Physicians like al-Razi
were concerned with the benefits and harm of all kinds of food to
bodies of differing temperament. Their views on diet, adopted from
the humoral theory of the Greeks, far from directly influencing
dietary customs of Muslim urban dwellers as has been suggested"),
probably more accurately reflected the existing tastes of the literate,
83) Ashtor, "Diet of the salaried classes", p. 3
280 DAVID WAINES
leisure class for whom they wrote; borrowed theory, in other words,
rationalized existing practice.
Al-Rdizi's recommendation of the 'golden mean' bread made from
fine wheat flour (huwward)baked in a tannur is instructive84): it should
contain a balanced proportion of salt, borax and yeast; it should be
neither too thick nor too thin, for such a loaf would then be balanced
between too much and too little nourishment and between the swift
and slow rate of excretion. This 'ideal' bread, he states, was most
appropriate for the majority of mankind which possessed balanced,
or near to balanced bodies, and which inhabited or lived near to the
'temperate' regions of the globe. It would be incorrect to conclude
from this, as does Ashtor from equally flimsy evidence, that "most
Orientals and certainly the towndwellers, ate wheaten bread""85).
Al-Rizl's 'ideal' loaf was certainly not consumed by his theoretical
majority. He himself recognized that there were many people who
required more nourishment from their bread than that found in the
tannur-baked wheat loaf. Bread baked in a furn (flour composition
unspecified) was considered more nourishing and hence more suited
to those who laboured and toiled for their living. The distinction here
between khubz al-tannur and khubz al-furn is one between home made
and market baked bread"6). Less well-to-do households than that of
our 'typical' merchant, without a tannur and the assistance of a full
domestic team, could have their bread baked from their own pre-
84) MandfiCal-Aghdhzyawa Daf Maddriha (Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., reprint of the
Cairo edition: al-Matba'at al-Khairiya, 1305 AH.), p.6.
85) Ashtor, "Diet of the salaried classes", p. 2. Equally unfounded is his obser-
vation (p.3) that "the predominance of wheat bread was a striking feature of the
diet of the Orientals" and that with the expanded cultivation of barley, "there is
no reason to suppose that the Inhabitants of the towns began to eat barley bread."
As is shown below to the contrary the urban population, especially the poor,
probably rarely ate wheat bread but rather consumed bread made from inferior
grain or, indeed, pulses.
86) Pellat's remark in "Khubz", p. 42, that "there were no real bakeries and
there was no sdikreserved for the making and sale of bread" is contradicted by the
medieval sources on Baghdad. See the discussion below and George Makdisi, "The
topography of eleventh century Baghdad: Materials and notes", Arabwca6 (1959),
p. 188, where a bakers' market is mentioned.
pared dough made from cheaper, coarse ground wheat flour

(khashkar)or other grains.
Rice bread, too, the common fare among the poor, the miserly and
the ascetic, was recommended as 'balanced' nourishment but only
when consumed with a lot of fat, salt, sour milk or garlic, all poor
man's condiments"8).
Malla bread was judged by al-Razi to be more nourishing than
khubzal-furn, suggesting that this was the poor man's loaf made in his
hovel where there was neither tannur not the means with which to
purchase even inferior grades of wheat. The simplicity of the malla
method would have been used to make unleavened bread from the
lesser grains, such as millet or sorghum, as well as form pulses or
other substances which clearly were regarded as 'supplementary
cereals', a cheap source of protein, just as they were in early modern
Europe"88). Al-Razi briefly mentions chick peas (hummas), broad
beans (baqillad),lentils (Cadas), mungo beans (mash), vetch Oullubdn),
lupine (turmus), and acorn (bulla.t). Al-Warraq has a similar list but
adds with a note of warning that two of the most common pulses,
chick peas and lentils, had undesirable social side-effects; the first was
believed to stimulate the production of urine while the latter was
supposed to reduce sexuality.
Most of the items in al-Raizi's list were known in early Mesopota-
mian times"89),and may even then have been used in bread prepara-
tions; in which case, al-Raizi's text would reflect quite ancient prac-
tices recognized as having survived in the 'low' tradition of the
common man in medieval Iraq.
The 'high' tradition in bread making was thus characterized by a
preference for and ability to purchase the choicest ingredients and to
87) al-RSizi, Mandfic al-Aghdhfya, pp. 7-8; see also Marius Canard, "Le riz dans
le proche orient aux premiers siecles de l'Islam", Arabica 6 (1959), pp. 113-131
especially at p. 123 where rice is mentioned as food of the poor
88) Braudel, Capitalism, pp. 73-74.
89) For the Akkadian or Sumerian and Latin botanical equivalents of the
Arabic, see Martin Levey, TheMedical Formularyor Aqrabadhinof al-Kindi. (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), section of Materia Medica, pp. 225-345
282 DAVIDWAINES
have the bread home baked by the kitchen staff. The hierarchy of
ingredient preferences expressed in al-Razi's treatise (and echoed by
al-Warraq) is not 'scientific' but social; it reflects a hierarchy of prices
and hence of incomes. For example, the ratio between the cost of the
most superior and most inferior qualities of cereal grains was
established for fairly long periods at about 4:1; grains of an
intermediate quality were half the price of the most expensive and
barley was half as dear as wheat in general9o). True, in times of crisis
these ratios could become meaningless, to the extent that a pulse like
lentils might be more expensive than wheatg'). Very generally, then,
by contrast the 'low' tradition in bread making meant a choice among
several ingredients of low cost and, judged by 'high' tradition values,
also of inferior quality, at least for bread making purposes if not in
terms of food value. One must also add that for the common man
there must have been everywhere at all times, a fine line between the
enduring, customaryuse of 'secondary cereals' for bread and their
necessaryuse in periods of dearth and famine.
Returning now to the haute cuisine, the bread section in al-
Warraq's cookbook provides an interesting example of how the 'high'
tradition incorporated and transformed part of the Arab's food tradi-
tions. We noted in a previous section that sawiq was a well known
popular Arab dish made from parched barley. Al-Warraq gives
several recipes for sawzq, all of which are made with wheat. With this
basic difference in mind, the first recipe shows how sawzq was
prepared in the traditional manner and used by travellers on long
journeys. Select, whole grain wheat was first thorougly washed and
soaked overnight, washed a second time and left to dry. The grain
was then fried until browned and, when cooled, was powdered and
sifted. In this form it could be eaten dry, but for Arabs it generally
constituted a gruel moistened with water, clarified butter or fat92).
90) Cahen, "Quelques problems economiques", p. 344.

91) Ibid
92) Lane, Lexicon, p. 1472; al-Warraq, folios, 26v-27r
For the urban palate, al-Warraq notes that sugar could be added to
the sawiq to sweeten it. A more refined preparation called for carefully
husked wheat grain which, when made in the above manner, was
mixed with other ingredients like pomegranite seeds. Another dish
was made from one part sawiq, four parts powdered sugar and one
part crushed almonds.
A second dish of Arab origin incorporated into the urban haute
cuisine was tharfd. Al-Warraq properly treats this as a meat dish into
which bread was crumbled (Arabic verbal root: tharada) at the last
stage of cooking. Again the dish, like sawiq, is transformed from the
simple meal of the Arab into an elaborate combination of meat and
poultry, herbs and spices.
The inclusion of sawiq in a chapter on bread and the mention of
pulses as 'supplementary cereals' for bread making, illustrate the
importance of cereals in this broadest sense not only to the imperial
economy, but also to the diet of every section of the urban popula-
tion. In both western and eastern quarters of Baghdad, divided by the
swift flow of the Tigris, there were flour merchants' markets (suq al-
daqqdqizn)adjacent to bread makers' markets (stiq al-khabbazin); the
importance of barley is marked by a location on the western side
known as Barley Road which ran up to Barley Gate near the Bridge
of Boats93). A market called suq al-sawwdqzn, also on the western side,
has created some difference of interpretation among experts on the
topography of the city. Lassner identifies it as a flour merchant's
market94) while Le Strange makes it the market of sellers of parched
pea broth called saw-q, which interpretation seems the correct one95).
Here sawiq is made from chick pea flour and not from barley in the
traditional manner. This replacement by a 'secondary cereal'
indicates that it was food eaten especially by the poor. It was sold in
93) G Le Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate(Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1900), p. 95
94) Jacob Lassner, The Topographyof Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1970), p. 102.
95) Le Strange, Baghdad, pp. 81-82.
284 DAVID WAINES
large quantities throughout the city, apparently during periods when

no fresh fruit was available.
Little is known of the inner working of the markets of Baghdad
during the ninth and tenth centuries. However, manuals of market
inspectors which have survived from a later period can be used to
throw some light on the daily tasks of the inspector (muhtasib) the
origin of whose function can be traced to the early ninth century96).
Characteristically, these manuals deal first with the food trades in the
market and of these begin with the flour merchants and bakers.
The muhtasib's main concern with the flour merchants was to
ensure they did not hoard grain for speculation or adulterate fine
grade flour with inferior kinds like barley, chick peas or beans97). The
trade obviously lent itself to these odious practices which explains
both the need for an inspector's vigilence and the fact that these
merchants were regarded socially as belonging to one of the market's
mitzer vils98).
Bread makers, too, were tempted to debase their product, in a
manner to increase the bread's weight and hence its price, using
cheap ingredients and passing it off for a better quality loaf. The
muhtasib's other problem was to inspect the conditions under which
bread was prepared. Ovens had to be kept swept, kneeding troughs
washed down and the dough was not to be kneeded with the feet,
elbows or knees99).
Another type of baker, called the farran, also had a shop (furn) in
the market. The distinction between the farran and the khabbazseems
to lie mainly in their marketing methods; whereas the khabbazsold
96) See the article "Hisba" by C. Cahen and M. Talbi in Encyclopaediaof Islam,
New Edition, Vol. 3, pp. 485-9, for a discussion of the Institution of the muhtasib
and the various type of market inspectors' manuals.
97) Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Maadlim al-Qurba, p. 89; see also al-Shaizari, Kitdb Nihdyat
al-Rutbaff Talab al-Hisba, ed. by al-Sayyid al-Baz al-'Arini (Beirut: Dar al-Thiqafa,
n.d.), p. 21
98) Robert Brunschvig, "Metiers vils en Islam", Studia Islamica, 16 (1962), p.
46.
99) Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Ma'alim al-Qurba, p. 91
directly to the buyer in the street, thefarran baked his clients' dough
which had been prepared in the home. One of the farran's employees
was supposedly solely responsible for identifying the dough trays of
each owner. Moreover, the farran performed another function, the
baking or possibly drying of fish, an operation requiring an oven
separate from the bread oven.00")
The allocation and distribution of grain to the millers and of flour
to the bread makers belong to the more political aspect of the life story
of bread, one which the muhtasib had to be alert to if he wished to
avoid disturbances in the It would be well worth considering
citylo?).
in future research the political dimensions of a cuisine in this
medieval urban setting where plenty and want were neighbours visi-
ble, the one to the other. Here, however, it can only be noted that
bread riots were, on the evidence of the sources, apparently less
common than might be expected given the size of Baghdad's popula-
tion, the vagaries of the harvest or the acts of God and men which
damaged the agricultural base of urban life. On the other hand, it is
likely that riots often failed to attract the concern of the chroniclers.
The periods of economic dislocation from the mid-ninth century and
the political disorder of the early decades of the tenth do offer the
occasional spectacle of the mob's wrath spurred by high prices and
hunger'02). These were the collective expression of a just anger
against the intollerable interference in or breakdown of this aspect of
the basic routine of man's material life, food preparation; when,
ironically in his otherwise "silent and half-forgotten story" it had to
be recorded that man does not live by bread alone.
100) Ibid., p. 92.

101) al-Shaizarl, Nihayat al-Rutba, p. 23
102) On these developments in general see Waines. "Third century internal
crisis", pp. 295-306 and for an assessment of some of the early 10th century sources
see, David Waines, "The pre-Buyid amirate: two views from the past", Interna-
tzonalJournalof Middle East Studies, 8 (1977), pp. 339-348. A detailed study of urban
disorder is the unpublished PhD thesis of Elizabeth Green Heilman, PopularProtest
in Medieval Baghdad 295-334 AH/908-946 AD, Princeton University, 1978.

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Journalof the Economicand SoczalHistoryof the Orient,Vol.

CEREALS, BREAD AND SOCIETY

1) Fernand Braudel, Capztalism and Material Lzfe, 1400-1800, Fontana Books

2) Jack Goody, Cooking, Cuiszne and Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University

traversing the road from Babylon to Baghdad via Mecca and

hardier barley had become more widespread than wheat owing to

6) T Jacobsen and R. McC. Adams, "Salt and silt in ancient Mesopotamian

17) R.J Forbes, "Chemical, culinary and cosmetic arts", in A History of

21) The permanent exhibition of the Egyptian Agricultural Museum in Cairo

24) R.B. Serjeant, "The cultivation of cereals in medieval Yemen", in Arabian

vegetation was the uncertain bounty of unpredictable rain. Political

bread"3). The following tradition may only reflect exceptional

called kha.tffa,was made from ground barley, presumably boiled, over

40) Ibzd., Vol. 7, p. 262, kztdbal-atCima.

fare5o). The offering of bread, therefore, was part of the elaborate

Commenting on their diet in general Burckhardt observed that "if an

55) Goody, Cooking, p. 105

tannurwas almost certainly used in Muhammad's day62). A portable

62) Wensinck, Concordance,see entries under khubz and tannuir

independent existence67). An interesting change has occured here.

During the intervening centuries between the decline of the late

68) David and Joan Oates, "Early irrigation agriculture", p. 117

Concomitant with these developments in Iraq was the increase in

patronage, this class also contributed to the emergence of a

service for his enormous household. Unfortunately next to nothing is

The dough was prepared in a bowl (jafna) of walnut wood, then

Wahshiyya mentions that raisins could be soaked in water for a day

80) Ibn Wahshlyya, Kitdb al-Fildha al-Nabatfyya, Part 3 (Oxford: Bodleian

83) Ashtor, "Diet of the salaried classes", p. 3

pared dough made from cheaper, coarse ground wheat flour

90) Cahen, "Quelques problems economiques", p. 344.

93) G Le Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate(Oxford: Oxford Univer-

large quantities throughout the city, apparently during periods when

100) Ibid., p. 92.

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Cereals, Bread & Society

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