opis
The opening refrain of track 1 on this fourth volume, Eggplants, declares that the following copla will describe seven recipes for stewing eggplants. The eggplant was a staple of Ottoman cuisine which was beloved by all, at every level of society from the Sultan and his slaves to the Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other inhabitants. There are many references in this volume to foodstuffs which were staples of the Ottoman Sephardic diet—eggplants, olive oil, rice, chicken, aromatics, rue, apple, lemon, milk, cinnamon, coffee and sherbets. In the menu of musical items, Macedonian dances, instrumentalized and sung kantigas and coplas, fragments of romansas and kantigas, and bodas tell of Sabbath food, tragic births in the royal palace, joyous, wicked, seductive, rejected and spiritual love, and mischievous, intoxicated, boisterous pre– and post–nuptial hijinks.