Mastering a World by Consuming a Book, circa 1495–1505

Abstract This article considers some of the ways that the Ni‘matnāma (Book of delights), a Persian-language recipe book composed and illustrated in Mandu, in west-central India, between circa 1495–1505, maps, embodies, and consumes a very particular kind of world, one in which the courtly consolidation of power and authority via extraction, accumulation, coercion, translation, and consumption figure centrally. It is argued that the Ni‘matnāma ’s text and images thematize long-distance travel and the accumulation and mixing of imported and local goods as integral facets of a broader courtly ethos centered upon male sexual expertise, corporeal control, mastery of ethical ideals, and political sovereignty.