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About 10 years ago foodies discovered the Middle Eastern spice sumac. It's called a spice over there because it's ground and usually sprinkled on things in the spice manner, but it's actually a dried fruit, prized for its bracing, slightly tannic tart flavor. (Yes, it's related to poison sumac, but it comes from a different and totally non-poisonous species known as tanner's sumac, hence the tannic quality.)
Sumac does have an aroma, though, and a unique one. It's sort of woody, literally like wood. It reminds me of chewing on the end of a wooden pencil in third grade, something I was absolutely not supposed to do. To me it will always have the glamour of the forbidden.
Foodies barely scratched the surface with sumac, though. They mostly accepted it in the form of za'atar, a mixture of sumac, wild thyme and usually some sesame seeds that is often sprinkled on fried eggs in the Middle East. It's also sprinkled on flatbread before it goes in the oven or mixed with olive oil to make a tart dip with a slightly wild, wandering-on-the-sunburnt-hillsides flavor.
But it can be used, and has been used, like any other tart flavor. The Lebanese salad fattoush (purslane, tomatoes, pita bread croutons) is sprinkled with sumac. In Turkey, sumac extract (sumak ekşisi) is sold as a sort of fruit juice "vinegar," similar to tamarind extract or sour pomegranate juice.
In the Middle Ages, the most common stuffing for baked fish was ground walnuts and sumac. And a 13th-century cookbook by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, the Scribe of Baghdad -- we who know him just call him al-Baghdadi -- has a recipe for lamb stewed with walnuts and sumac, into which you stir a little yogurt at the last minute. It's called fakhitiyya, from fakhita, with is the Arabic name of the wood dove.
There's nothing dovish in the flavor. Clearly the reason for the name is the color of the sauce -- purplish sumac, combined with the brown meat and walnuts and the white yogurt, makes it resemble the purplish-brown throat patch of the wood dove. (The Arabs consider the patch to resemble a fakht or moon shadow.) Sumac is available at Middle Eastern markets (in Farsi the name is spelled somagh) and from online sources such as thespicehouse.com and chefswarehouse.com.
Combined with the spices, which look like curry on paper but give a totally different effect, the walnut-sumac-yogurt flavoring makes for a dish with a distinctive medieval quality. Yes, this is what medieval food could taste like; easy time travel, everybody. And no doves were killed in the process.
If you're interested in more recipes like this, my translation of al-Baghdadi was published in 2005 by Prospect Books as "A Baghdad Cookery Book Newly Translated." Warning: In the Middle Ages, they rarely felt the need to give measurements, so you're sort of on your own.
Fakhitiyya
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 pounds lamb
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ to ½ cup minced walnuts
water
2 to 3 tablespoons ground sumac
¾ to1 cup tart, unflavored yogurt
Directions
- Trim the lamb and cut it into ¾-inch chunks.
- Put the oil in a pan, heat it over medium-high heat and fry the lamb until stiffened and slightly browned.
- Transfer the meat to a small saucepan. Deglaze with frying pan with about 1 cup water. Add the coriander, cumin, cinnamon, pepper, cardamom, salt, walnuts and the water, with enough more water to cover. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partly covered, until the lamb is quite tender, 1 to 1¼ hours.
- When the meat is nearly done, stir in the sumac. When ready to serve, stir in the yogurt -- off the heat, so that it doesn't curdle. Correct seasoning and add more sumac if desired.
Charles Perry is a former rock 'n' roll journalist turned food historian who worked for the Los Angeles Times' award-winning Food section, where he twice was a finalist for the James Beard award.
Photos, from top:
Lamb à la Dove With Sumac.
"A Baghdad Cookery Book Newly Translated."
Credit: Charles Perry
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