A Food That Increases Sexual Appetite

A Food That Increases Sexual Appetite

Al-Nuwayri describes a number of recipes related to sex: recipes for aphrodisiacs, contraceptives, abortions and more. Passages like this that describes a recipe to increase sexual desire serve as an important reminder of the base humanity of the people we are studying. Similarly to my comments on pre-Islamic prose and poetry, this passage is proof that the most base elements of our nature--in this case, our desire for sex and more of it at that--is present across culture and time. It's also a reminder that the past cannot simply be looked at as prim and chaste--this reminder plays into the portray of A'isha and the women in The Thousand and One Nights; while as modern audiences, these descriptions seem to be insinuating something about women's base nature, that rests on the idea of a widely chaste society.

Al-Nuwayri

The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition by Al-Nuwayri

Fourteenth century CE/Eighth century AH

Arabic translated to English

Take a fat hen that has been raised on chickpeas, broad beans, and kidney beans (or string beans), and slaughter and clean it. Boil some chickpeas in a broth full of onions, then dry them and pound them in the fat of three chickens. Then stuff them in the fat chickens and cook it as an isfidabaja stew, with as much salt as one uses to salt a skink. Sprinkle Chinese cinnamon, ginger, and other spices over it, and place the chicken, once it finishes cooking, on a loaf of bread made with semolina flour, very little salt and yeast. Leave the bread to soak up the broth, and then eat it with the chicken.