#seedloaf

[thefoodwithbite]

Breakfast this mornimg was a nice stop at @billykart West End. I set my Corn Fritter expectations very high and these go straight into my top three of all time. Top stuff. The better half go the Gluten Free Hemp & Seed Loaf and it tasted great as well. Great start to the morning · · · #billykart #billykartwestend #cornfritters #seedloaf #breakfast #brisbaneeats #brisbanecafes #brisbanebreakfast #brisbanefoodshare #brisbanefoodguide #brisbane #sydneyfoodblog #sydneyfoodie #sydneyfoodies #foodie #foodporn #foodshare #foodblog #foodoftheday #foodgasm #foodfeels #eeeeeats #foodphotography #foodbloggerau #foodstagram #thefeed #thefeedfeed #feedthefeed #hailthechef #thefoodwithbite (at Billykart West End) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4CGJLHA99o/?igshid=1ow5q7s80s4zk

[xtruss]

How did Victorian Muslims celebrate Christmas?

Led by William Quilliam, one of the first known Muslim converts, a small group used to gather and give food to the poor.

By Tharik Hussain, December 15, 2017

The Liverpool Muslim Institute was founded by the Liverpudlian William 'Abdullah' Quilliam

At 6am on December 25, 1888, the winter sun was yet to rise over the English city of Liverpool. A Victorian terrace house was feverish with activity.

The soft glow of candlelight emanating from 8 Brougham Terrace revealed men and women busily putting up decorations and preparing food for the big celebration ahead, Christmas Day.

In one corner, a familiar Victorian scene of a woman playing the piano and directing hymn rehearsals, the singers' voices muted by the howling of a bitter northeasterly wind as it rattled the thin panes of glass.

This was Britain's first mosque and Muslim community preparing for their very first Christmas Day.

At 8am, having led the tiny congregation in the early morning prayer, the Imam finally opened the mosque doors.

Imam William Henry "Abdullah" Quilliam founded the mosque after embracing Islam in 1887, aged 31 years old.

He was greeted by more than 100 of the city's poor, who had been invited to enjoy a charitable Christmas breakfast inside what locals called "Islam Church".

William Quilliam converted to Islam in 1887 and founded Britain's first Mosque

As the group of recent converts served the paupers a hearty meal of "sandwiches, bread and meat, seedloaf, bunloaf, bread and butter, tea and coffee," the music began.

Hymns praising the birth of the Prophet Isa, or Jesus, rung out through the venue. By evening, numbers swelled. Word had got around, and the Muslims offered a "substantial tea" and small musical concert to the visitors.

The entertainment began with "mesmeric performances" by two young Muslims before "some delightful airs upon the zither, the fairy bells and the mandolin" by one Miss Warren.

“This reminds us there was an earlier generation of Muslims, looking to spread the word of Islam through finding points in common rather than things to argue about.” — TIMOTHY WINTER, MUSLIM SCHOLAR

The finale was a "magic lantern" show and photo series from the imam's recent tour across distant Muslim lands.

These descriptions of Victorian Muslims at Christmas were taken from the pages of The Crescent, the country's first Muslim newspaper.

It was published by the Liverpool Moslem Institute between 1893 and 1907 and was recently made available online by the Abdullah Quilliam Society - which is based at the historic mosque - in partnership with the British Library.

"This reminds us there was an earlier generation of Muslims, looking to spread the word of Islam through finding points in common rather than things to argue about," said Timothy Winter, a prominent British Muslim scholar.

Winter, the dean of Cambridge Muslim College and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, converted to Islam in 1979. He has worked extensively with the archives.

Britain's first Muslim community mostly comprised English converts.

The Christmas scenes, described in every January issue of The Crescent, may come as a surprise.

Winter said the festivities demonstrated a willingness to appropriate local traditions, something that was easier because the group had grown up with them.

"They possessed a spirit of openness and hospitality and were more concerned with God and truth and conveying the word [as opposed to] boundary issues and questions of identity and difference," Winter told Al Jazeera.

A group photo of members of the Liverpool Muslim Institute in 1905

The Victorian Muslims were not celebrating Christmas in the Christian sense, said Humayun Ansari, professor and author of The Infidel Within: Muslims in Britain since 1800.

They simply wanted to reach out to the community.

In doing so, Ansari said, Quilliam and the early British Muslims were "indigenising" their Muslim identities.

"What Quilliam is doing in these early examples is trying to communicate that Islam is more familiar to the Christians of Britain then they think. He is trying to show that it is not something foreign and alien, but part of the Abrahamic tradition," Ansari told Al Jazeera.

"These early British Muslims were taking elements of British indigenous culture deemed acceptable within the Islamic framework and marrying them with their religious identities. In doing so, they offer a roadmap and blueprint for what an indigenous British Muslim identity might look like today."

In addition to the mosque, the Muslims of Liverpool founded a school, orphanage and a museum.

At school, students were taught a curriculum that integrated Islam with mainstream British education, including music classes.

They took part in literary and debating events titled A night with Charles Dickens, Oliver Cromwell and Ancient Britons.

In the playground, boys played football and cricket.

The Crescent newspaper, edited by Quilliam, regularly published inspiring quotes of notable Brits such as Shakespeare and Lord Tennyson.

Quilliam's role and influence were such that he was given the title of Sheikh Ul Islam of Britain by the Ottomans, and when he left Liverpool in 1908, it seems his community disbanded too.

Today, there are more than 2.5 million Muslims in Britain and, unlike Quilliam's community, they hail from a multitude of ethnic and cultural backgrounds and observe Islam differently.

"The Victorian Muslims were a small community, almost exclusively white English," said Sadiya Ahmed, founder of Everyday Muslim - an organisation which preserves Britain's Muslim heritage.

"Today, we have Muslims in Britain whose families have come from all over the world as well as those who are ethnically English, and this inevitably means they approach Christmas in a number of ways," she told Al Jazeera.

The issue recently came to the fore when Tesco, a supermarket brand, released its festive advertising campaign featuring a Muslim family celebrating Christmas.

Critics threatened to boycott the company because they saw Islam as incompatible with Christmas.

However, others welcome the advert as embracing multiculturalism.

Critics said Tesco should not have featured Muslims in its Christmas advertising campaign because the holiday is a Christian celebration [Screenshot from Tesco's advert]

"Some [Muslims] will completely shun it as a Christian festival, believing it has nothing to do with Islam," said Ahmed.

"Others will embrace it as a secular British tradition, putting up trees, exchanging presents and eating a halal turkey on Christmas Day. And then there will be those viewing it as a celebration of the birth of an important prophet of Islam.

"Britain's Muslim community is far more diverse today than it was when Quilliam was alive, and this is why their views on Christmas are equally diverse."

The mosque in Liverpool is still used for prayers and Islamic classes

— SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS, Tharik Hussain is a London-based journalist and travel writer specialising in the Muslim heritage of the West.

[gastropostvancouver]

From Gastroposter Stacey Robinsmith, via Instagram:

Super seedy sandwich for my lunch on the go. Pumpkin, sunflower, sesame and flax seed loaf with a smear of McLaren's cheese, fresh tomato from the garden and an optional slice of mortadella.

[jeannekayla]

My "healthier" version of a number three at frigo👍 #seedloaf

[janecoxwell]

Avocado and Seed Loaf

Makes one 5 x 10-inch loaf or about 4 mini loaves

  Baking bread couldn’t get any easier than this, really. You basically just throw everything together, mix, and put it in whatever baking vessel you like. I sometimes use tins that beans came in, or coffee tins. You can use anything you like, just oil it well beforehand so that you can get the bread out.

You can really add whatever you like—feta, olives, rosemary, cherry tomatoes. You could try 4 different types in one go. Have fun.

  2 cups rye flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2  tablespoon Maldon salt or other flaky salt

1 packet instant dry yeast

1/ ¾ cups mixed seeds—I use sesame, flax, poppy, pumpkin, sunflower

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon agave nectar

2 avocados

  Preheat the oven to 400°F

Combine the rye and whole wheat flours, salt, yeast, and seeds in a large bowl. Mix in the oil, vinegar, agave nectar, and 2 cups water. It’ll all come together in a sticky dough. Scoop out the avocado flesh and mix in the batter. You can do different size chunks

  Place the dough in an oiled baking pan or tin and press pack it in. It’ll only rise slightly, so you can fill it almost to the top.

  Bake for about  35 mins to 1 hour—this will totally depend on the size vessel you’ve used to cook it in.  You’ll know it’s done when it starts to color and pull away from the sides of the tin.