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Significance of Islamic Cuisine
Christian cuisine, which was established around the first to third century, and was indebted to Islamic cuisine, spread over vast areas of the old Roman Empire, but it wasn't until around the fifteenth century that It spread as widely as Islamic cuisine. It is important to acknowledge the significance on types of islamic food and put emphasis on Islamic cuisine first, as well as the impact that it had throughout western Eurasia. Muslims respected, and valued both meat and alcohol over a long period of time, and the cuisine throughout Islam was heavily based off of wheat products, meat, and sweet confections.

Food was treasured and treated with great praise, the Qur'an stated that, "God's creation was good.... Muslims should enjoy it," and that "to enjoy sweets is a sign of faith." According to the Baghdad Cookbook, of the six pleasures: drinks, sexual intercourse, scent, and sound, food was considered to be of the greatest importance. About one third of the Cookbook consisted of sweet dishes, and attractive cuisine consisting of fine foods was considered to stimulate one's appetite, therefore playing a part in the health of an individual, as well as the appearance of their physique. The Qur'an also indicated that the afterlife would consist of a garden with rivers full of sweet water, milk, wine, and honey, which were all liquids similar to those correlated throughout the human body. The water supported life; milk represented both breasts and semen, which contribute to new life; wine symbolized blood, as well as male activity and power; and lastly, honey illustrated sweetness, purity, and morality.

Although the Qur'an only makes a few references to wine, besides the wine running rivers, the beverage still had a large impact on Islamic customs. Wine that had been distributed and sold by Jews and Christian monks had been greatly admired in early Islam. In order to express opinions that would generally be looked down upon, poetry would be composed to speak on controversial topics, particularly while drinking. Wine drinking gatherings would bring courtly meals to an end, while poets would recite verses that celebrated the search for freedom, generosity, and aristocracy. In contrast to the Qur'an, there had been publications in the Hadith stating that, "wine seemed to be suspect." One passage mentioned that wine, as a fermented beverage, impacts ones intellect; and another passage forbids the storage of fermented fruit beverages altogether. Because of this, slowly over time, wine became prohibited. Similar to the wine drinking gatherings, following meals, poets, physicians, astrologers, alchemists, as well as other educated intellectuals would commemorate the state and its history and power. Cuisine, similar to poetry, was thought to be an art that was often used to celebrated and socialize.

Wheat products, such as breads and starches, have a long, extensive ancestry, and had been described in human-like terms. For example, physicians believed that wheat was the most esteemed grain, due to the warm and moist temperament, not unlike the the human body. This similarity to the human body was believed to add nutritional value. Wheat had been used in attempt to alter personality traits as well. Wheat flour could be blended together with water in order to create a drink called Sawiq. This beverage was considered to be cooling and refreshing, therefore perfect for hot-tempered people, especially throughout the warm summer months of the year.

Food was also used to represent societal hierarchies throughout this era. For instance, wealth was often represented by the use of lavishly scented and colored cuisine. Flour was also produced in various categories: white, large grained semolina, whole meal, and what remained was a bran that had been used for animals. White flour was used in "high cuisine," the large-grained semolina was for notable situations, and whole meal was most often put to use by the urban poor. Bread was usually baked using beehive ovens, and white breads were most often sold to higher ranked individuals on the societal hierarchal scale, whereas darker breads were reserved for those who were considered a lower class throughout society.

Cuisine was thought to have symbolic meaning as well. Bread, for example, would symbolize and acknowledge the effort that God had put in to provide humans with food. The stages of the growth and use of bread may resemble that of a human life. "The growing of wheat and the making of bread- from the tead grain in the earth, to the living sweat, to meal and flour ground in the mill, to living leavened bread, and finally to bread dissolution in the human body." Other foods that symbolized concepts of human life were soup, meat and vegetables, rice pilau and stuffed flaky pastries (generally made with phyllo), eggs, salt meat, sweet halvah and rice-flour puddings, and milk and sweetened fruit drinks. Soup was used to remind people that life would cease to exist without water, meat and vegetables reminded people that life was sustained on earth, rice pilau and stuffed flaky pastries stimulated the power of fire to convert and perfect. Eggs considered women's fertility, salt meat was thought of in regard to mens power to impregnate. Sweet halvah and rice-flour puddings created imagery of humans living throughout a divine society, and lastly milk and sweetened fruit drinks had been what angels had offered to the Prophet.

Trade
Often times, cities, as well as its surrounding agricultural areas are typically not self sufficient. Because of this, people living in these regions were forced to trade with either other cities, nomads, or other pastoralists. They would usually trade for things like raw materials, (such as metals like tin, bronze, copper, or iron ore) or animals.[4] An "intercontinental model" of world trade, "between 1500 and 1800 on the basis of interregional competition in production and trade"[5] was proposed by Frederic Mauro, but the early existence of it was already observed by Dudley North in the year of 1691. This world market of trade as well as the flow of finances throughout permitted the intrasectoral and intersectional regional divisions of both generated competition, and labor. This also spanned out and interconnected throughout the entire globe. [6]

Throughout the water frontier many people throughout history have traveled by both as much as the have by land. Along with this, quite a large amount of individuals relied on the sea and maritime trade, raiding, piracy, or smuggling for survival.[6] Littoral peoples, reflecting symbiosis of both land and sea, would often have more in common with one another than they would with their neighboring islands. Throughout centuries in the past, water supplied the, cheapest, and sometimes the only means of transporting bulk materials on a large scale, and it was also the most secure way to ensure the transport over long distances. Because of this, the proximity of the sea drew Southeast Asians to participate in long distance trade, but it was not only water that linked the shores to one another. Seafaring people, along with traders contributed to these trade routes as well. [6]

Ports / Inland
Maritime traders most often congregated in ports, which were considered the point in which land and sea met that linked the hinterland to the wider world.[6] There were some ports that were more favored than others, blessed with a good location, sufficient warehouse facilities, accessible harbors, and adequate supplies of food and water became what were called "entrepôts," which were essentially the super-centers for trade. It was rare that these ports were ever considered a final destination, though, but rather central meeting points in what was an ever changing economic and political environment.[6] Whether in Asia, Europe, or Africa, these port centers consisted of ethnically and culturally diverse communities. Many also had officials that were of foreign birth or ancestry - they were skilled in being knowledgable of the various cultures and languages of merchants that were also foreign, in order to be successful in supervising the trade that had occurred. Throughout many of the ports, merchants had become a more powerful group in local politics. Further, these ports promoted cultural exchange, along with economic exchange, due to the fact that it had been open to the world for races, cultures, and ideas to intermix with one another, along with the fact that this blend of both locals and outsiders from diverse backgrounds that were open to accepting cultural differences.[6] Nation building and modernity reduced the role of trade through the sea, and increased the reliance of trade through the land and the air in economic and social exchange. Even though Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong are still vibrant and available to the world similar to their Early Modern counterparts serving functions such as tourism which is unrelated to foreign trade, only a few ports are as economically crucial today as they were.

Inland trade moved both by water, and over land itself. For example, shipping in small boats went along the coasts of India, but inland waterways were readily available to use to transport goods throughout many parts of India, especially in the south. Caravans that contained numbers from ten, all the way to up forty thousand pack/draught animals moved overland at a time. Combinations of these forms of transportation carried throughout the subcontinent and where therefore transshipped to and from long distance maritime trade.[5] The majority of all of the port cities were in symbiosis with the caravan routes to and from their related hinterland interiors, and sometimes even with distant transcontinental regions. This is especially true in Central Asia - and it is suggested that the continental trade over both the land and the ocean maritime trade should be viewed not as separate or competitive, but rather as mirror images of one another. [5]