One of the most surprising things to emerge from our studies into the history of medieval and renaissance Cyprus is how much of our food in the West seems to have a Cyprus connection.

 

As well as being on the spice route between East and West, Cyprus was the world's leading sugar producer in the middle ages, which made it fabulously wealthy as sugar was more valuable per gram than gold. But it also led to the development of a rich court culture in the royal palaces on the island, and with so many foreign kings, queens and knights passing through Cyprus on their way to fight in the Crusades much of that Cypriot court culture influenced the courts of Western Europe.

 

​It is looking increasingly likely that along with Spain and southern Italy, Cyprus was one of the main conduits for Arab and Persian culture, including food culture, to cross from the East to the West. In part this was because the Kings of Cyprus only employed Syrian cooks in their kitchens!

 

But Cyprus was also a key route for the royal customs of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) court to enter the West.

 

Let's just take one example. William Woys Weaver suggests that the fork was almost unknown in Western Europe before Peter II, King of Cyprus, took forks as gifts to give to the other monarchs he met on his tour of Western Europe in the 1360s. Before this, says Dr Weaver, only the royal courts of Byzantium and Cyprus ate using forks. When Western Europeans did encounter people eating food with forks they thought it so odd it was potentially dangerous. For example, the death in Venice of the Byzantine princess Theodora Doukaina, in the late eleventh century, was attributed by the Bishop of Ostia to excessive pride, evident he said, in her use of a golden fork at mealtimes! 

 

But this is not all. Dr Weaver has also suggested that marzipan, mousse and perhaps even fricassée went West from Cyprus. This is not so unlikely. The exchange of culture between the French royal court that ruled Cyprus for 300 years and the the courts of their royal cousins in mainland France was no doubt very frequent.

 

Another dish that might have gone to France via Cyprus, is blancmange. Blancmange was originally a meat based sweet dish, made with shredded chicken breast. That might sound strange, as we do not usually think of using chicken in a sweet dish, but really it is no stranger than using beef suet or pork gelatine in puddings. In fact blancmange only lost this meat base, even in Western Europe, in the eighteenth century.

 

Here is a recipe for Cypriot Blancmange, which should look like the image at the top of the page when cooked. It is much richer and denser in texture than modern blancmange. It is a little chewey, but also much tastier - not a chicken taste by the way!

 

You do not see this often in Cyprus now, although it is still popular in Turkey where they call it Tavuk Göğsü, or chicken breast pudding.

 

Cypriot Blancmange (or κοτόπουλογλυκό in Greek, meaning sweet chicken)

 

Ingredients

 

1 chicken breast 

800ml milk

300ml cream 

Pinch of salt 

200gr sugar 

5 tablespoons rice flour 

Ground cinnamon

 

Method

 

Place the chicken breast in a pan with a little water. Bring it to the boil and then reduce the heat. Simmer until the meat is cooked. Drain and allow to cool. Once cool tear it into fine threads using your hands. The meat should be cooked long enough so this is very easily done.

 

Moisten the rice flour with a little of the milk. Put the rest of the milk into a saucepan with the cream, salt, and sugar, and bring the liquid to boil. Add a few spoonfuls of the hot liquid to the moistened rice flour, and pour the mixture into the pan.

 

Here you are making a kind of custard base, so beat the mixture vigorously and continue to cook over a low heat, stirring all the time so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Like custard the mixture will thicken. When it starts to thicken beat in the fine threads of chicken into it and continue to cook the mixture until it is very thick.

 

Now tip the mixture into a heavy-based frying pan or griddle and place over the heat on the hob for 5 to 10 minutes. You actually want to burn the bottom of the pudding so it goes a chocolate brown. Move the pan around so that the pudding is evenly burnt.

 

As an alternative to griddling the pudding you can put it under the grill, but watch it carefully as it will suddenly turn brown and can easily burn.

 

Leave the pudding to cool in the pan, and once cooled, dust with cinnemon and cut it into into rectangles. Lift them out with a spatula. Serve at room temperature or slightly cooled.

 

 

 

 

Based on a recipe by Ghillie Basan.