sumac fruit

Ingredients

sumac spice (fruits), water, gum arabic, vitriol

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

30 g of sumac spice in 180 g of water heated until boiling point. The recipe says to cook it 'until the red appears'. After straining the solution through gauze, 12 g of gum arabic were added. After dissolution, 6 g of vitriol were added (p. 140).

Evidence

"I put 30 g of sumac spice in 180 g of water and heated it until it reached boiling point... I added 12 g of gum arabic and waited for it to dissolve completely (this took about a day). I then added the vitriol and the liquid blackened immediately. After 6 g, the solution was very dark with some nuances of red-violet."

Remarks

The experiment showed that sumac fruit extracts react with vitriol to form a black ferro-gallate complex (p. 140). While the initial liquid was red, it blackened immediately upon adding vitriol. The author suggests that historical authors like ibn Bādīs and al-Malik al-Muẓaffar may have miscategorized it as a red ink because they did not test the complete recipe themselves (p. 141).