Food

How a Medieval Recipe Inspired This Modern Duck Dish

Liz Grossman

In December of 2020, Chef Zubair Mohajir found himself in quarantine with a lot of time on his hands to brainstorm dishes. He came across a book of ancient recipes called Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World by Lilia Zaouali, “which was essentially a historic time capsule of how people ate right before the Crusades went down,” he says. “It’s about what they cooked in medieval Islam, which is an 800-...