A Baghdad Cookery Book

For centuries, it had been the favourite Arabic cookery book of the Turks. The original manuscript, formerly held in the library of the Aya Sofya Mosque, is still in Istanbul; it is now MS Ayasofya 3710 in the Süleymaniye Library. At some point a Turkish sultan commissioned very a handsome copy, now MS Oriental 5099 in the British Library in London. At a still later time, a total of about 260 recipes were added to Kitâb al Tabîkh's original 160 and the expanded edition was retitled Kitâb Was…