‘Luxury foods’ in medieval Islamic societies

Abstract

The discussion of luxury food in medieval Islamic societies is based on data drawn from culinary and dietetic texts produced during the period from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. The sources reflect more specifically the food concerns of an urban leisure class rather than those of the ruler's court circles. Characteristics of the urban high cuisine are described as well as the parallel interest in other forms of nourishment, such as ‘home remedies’ described in both types of source material and reflecting the relatively self-contained nature of the urban bourgeois household.