Life and Food in the Seventeenth Century | Illustration of an Egyptian City Dweller

The historical record <ibrains confounded by the ode of abu shaduf expounded< /i>, dating back to the 1680s, offers an account of food and drink. Authored by Al-Shirbini, a minor ‘alim or religious scholar from Damietta, one of the main cities of the Egyptian Delta, the book divides the Egyptian population according to their roots and social standing. The inhabitants of the city, especially Cairo, are most genteel and refined, with excellent food. Within this group, he identified the privileged families of Turkish descent as a kind of aristocracy of taste. The rural population is divided into inhabitants of the larger villages directly bordering the Nile, who are accorded some respect in terms of lifestyle and taste.

For more, see Sami Zubaida's article 'Confounding the Brain' from Rawi magazine's Issue 10 available online (link in details).