Sweet and Salty Recipes: Some Examples from the Muslim and Byzantine Culinary and Medicinal Common Tradition
Sweet and Salty Recipes: Some Examples from the Muslim and Byzantine Culinary and Medicinal Common Tradition

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the use of salt, vinegar, honey, and sugar in some Byzantine andArabic-Islamic recipes in cooking and pastry-making as well as for food preservation and in medicalpreparations. It draws mostly on information provided by Byzantine sources and Arabic translationsfor any comparison. The research focuses on some examples of salty/sour and sweet culinary andmedicinal recipes, common or similar Arabo-Byzantine products like iṭriya, garos/murrī, zoulapionmishmishiyya, and libysia. The paper starts with Galen’s Syrian mēloplakous, continues with saltyand sweet liquid preparations as well as preserves of roses and fruits. It concludes with a discussionof two exemplary Arabic delicacies more widely known in twelfth-century Byzantium, two foodswith extreme opposite but equal flavored tastes: a sweet and a salty Arab product, paloudakin orapalodaton (fālūdhaj), which was the most typical sweet the Byzantines borrowed from the Arabs,and libysia, the especially flavorful salted fish from Egypt.

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