Reviews 119 Black does not share therecipe'senthusiasm for 'white grece', presumably because her game butcher provides her with fat, juicy rabbits. Lashings of oil or dripping will, however, compensate for the dryness of the wild Australian rabbit, and the spices here provide its exquisite sour-sweet flavour. Was Anglo-French medieval cuisine delicious enough to bear this kind of effort in hewing and smiting, boyling and streyningl Has the presence in our larders of garlic, tomatoes, and potatoes spoilt our palates? I looked at Emilio Faccioli's unsurpassed volume, L'arte della cucina in Italia: libri di ricette e trattati sulla civilta della tavola dal XIV al XIX secolo (Turin, 19 to see if there was a great difference. Thefifteenth-centuryEnglishrecipefor losyns differs from the fourteenth-century Tuscan recipe for lasagne only in the specification that poudre douce (a mixture of mace and cardamom or cinnamon with white pepper) should be added. The Italian recipes are distinguished, however, by a wondrous range of ingredients, farricherand more varied and appetising, and corresponding more closely to the range of ingredients available in m o d e m markets. Maggie Black's Medieval cookbook is part of a very successful worldwide trend in museum marketing, namely quality reproductions of museum holdings, in this case of medieval texts and illustrations, which are made available through outlets far beyond the original museum. While it may not supersede Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler's very plain Pleyn delit: medieval cookery for modern cooks, with aU its menu advice for conference dinner organizers, this is certainly a more beautiful book, created to please the eye and the mind, even if the palate was less impressed. Nerida Newbigin Department of Italian University of Sydney Bloom, Jonathan, Minaret: symbol of Islam (Oxford studies in Islamic art, VII), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989; pp. 216; 133 figures; R.R.P. AUS$130.00. This study sets out to ask when, where, why, and how minaret towers became attached to mosques and eventuaUy came to be regarded by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as a symbol of Islam. It also claims to correct the received view concerning the history of the minaret and to explain it in terms of the culture that produced it rather than in external terms. While 120 Reviews keeping a broad historical and spatial perspective, the book focuses on the first six centuries or so of Islamic history, mostly in the central lands of Islam. Edward Said, author of Orientalism, has reminded us of the significant distinction between 'origins' and 'beginnings' in the context of literary creativity (Said, Beginnings: intention & method, Columbia, 1975, 1985). Such a distinction is particularly valuable for cultural historians. While not referring to Said, Bloom certainly sees the difference between the origins of the call to prayer (adhan) as an integral part of Islamic liturgy at the time of the Prophet and the somewhat later beginnings of the minaret (manara) as an architectural feature of the mosque. His combined use of literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and monumental evidence is to be commended. However, his lengthy discussion of etymology leads to unnecessary digressions and confusion. For example, the assertion that the Arabic term manara (whence English minaret) originally signified 'a place offire'is misleading; the reference to Zoroastrianfireis irrelevant. While accepting his conclusion that the minaret was not originally a necessary element of mosque architecture, his argument that the first minarets were begun in the late second, rather than thefirstIslamic century, in 'Abbasid Iraq rather than Umayyad Syria is less convincing. His apparent concern to disprove the connection between adhan and early mosque towers may have led the author to minimize the importance of mi'dhana (from adhan), as the more usual Arabic term for a mosque tower. This is despite evidence that the term and the tower were both in use, in connection with the calltoprayer, before the mid-eighth century A.D. The author seems to blame the supposed 'inadequacy of the Arabic historical dictionary' for the apparent misunderstanding by Western Orientalists of the history of the minaret. Although true for the early m o d e m period, such criticism of Arabic lexicography is actually invalid for the period with...
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Open Access
Sep 1, 2012
Moh Arsyad Bahar 
