Eating cat’s meat is permissible- they say jiddi qutta, meaning “tasty cat”-…They offered me some and I ate it. God Willing, it is permissible; I have not seen anything about it in the legal texts. And they have excellent Boza [a Turkish fermented barley drink, but here meaning Merissa, Millet Beer].
-Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname, Book of Travels, Vol. X, on the town of Dongola, Nubia, 1685
Evliya travelled all over the Ottoman world but kept Nubia and the Upper Nile for the end of his life, much as Ibn Battuta did for Africa, Mali and Niger, and he always kept stricter Islamic dietary rules for what he ate than for what he drank. In 1984, Daoud and I spent a day and a night in Dongola but other than fresh bread and oranges we didn’t go looking for any other kind of food, or for booze.