Manuela Marin

CSIC, Madrid, Spain

F r o m a l-A n d a lu s to S p ain : A ra b tr a c e s in
S p a n ish c o o k in g

Arab influences on Medieval European ways of cooking have received

intermittent scholarly attention. In the second half of the 20th century,
Maxime Rodinson published a series of articles in which his vast knowl-
ededge of Arab-Islamic cultures and his philological insight allowed him
to identify areas of until then unsuspected cultural contact between Islam
and Christendom.1 Food history began then to appear as yet another field
open to scholars interested in cultural transfers from East to West, a
domain usually reserved to those working in the more elevated areas of
philosophy and science.2
To this day, Rodinson’s studies remain unrivalled, and not many efforts
have followed his pioneering path. In 1980, Toby Peterson published an
enthusiastic and controversial article,3 in which, basing his argument on
the use of ingredients such as sugar, saffron and spices, he postulated that
“intrigued with the sensual pleasures of the Arab world, Europe associat­
ed luxurious eating with the particular food of the Arabs, and thus the pas­
sage of what must have seemed a strange and alien cuisine was facilitat-

1 Maxime RODINSON, “Romania et autres mots italiens d’origine arabe” Romania, 71

(1950), 433-449; “Sur l’étymologie de losange”, Studi Orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della
Vida, Roma, 1956, II, 425-435; “La Ma’muniyyat en Orient et en Occident”, Etudes dédiées à la
mémoire de Lévi-Provençal, Paris, 1962, II, 733-747; “Les influences de la civilisation musulmane
sur la civilisation européenne médiévale dans les domaines de la consommation et de la distrac­
tion: l’alimentation”, Convegno Internazionale (9-15 aprile 1969): Oriente e Occidente nel
Medioevo. Filosofia e Scienze, Roma, 1971, pp. 479-499.
2 The classical Spanish study on scientific and philosophical transmission is by Juan
VERNET, La cultura hispanoârabe en Oriente y Occidente, Barcelona, 1978 (German translation,
Die spanisch-arabische Kultur in Orient und Okzident, Zürich, 1984; French translation, Ce que la
culture doit aux arabes dEspagne, Paris, 1985).
3 “The Arab Influence on Western European Cooking”, Journal o f Medieval History 6 (1980),
pp. 317-340.

Food & History, vol. 2, n° 2 (2004), pp. 35-52

36 M anuela M arin

ed.”4 More recently, Bernard Rosenberger has published an excellent

overview of Arab food and cooking traditions,5 in which he advocates a
cautious approach to the subject of Arab influences in Europe, more evi­
dent, in his opinion, in the introduction of products (vegetables, fruits,
spices, sugar) than in actual cooking processes or in the adoption of dish­
es of Arab origin.
In this context, the spanish case stands out as an exception to the gen­
eral indifference surrounding this particular aspect of food history. At first,
nothing would seem to be more obvious, given the long Islamic presence
in the Iberian Peninsula which could easily explain the interest of Spanish
scholars with every aspect of the interaction between Christians and
Muslims in medieval and early Modern history (it has to be remembered
here that the Moriscos, Muslim inhabitants of Spain forcibly converted to
Christianity in the beginning of the 16th century, kept their cultural iden­
tity up to the time of their expulsion, at the beginning of the 17th century).
However, things are not so simple.
Research on the possible Arab roots in Spanish cuisine is a recent
development, which I will now examine. The reasons for this situation are
twofold. First, food history is a new arrival to the mainstream of historical
research -more to the point, of Arab-Islamic studies- and if a personal note
may be introduced here, I clearly remember how Maxime Rodinson once
told me about the difficulties he encountered in publishing his seminal
study “Recherches sur les documents arabes relatifs a la cuisine” in the
most influential French journal Revue des Etudes Islamiques.6 Similarly,
the contemporary Spanish school of Arab studies, since the middle of the
19th century up to the 1960’s, devoted its efforts mainly to the fields of pol­
itics, literature, and theology, in accordance to the established trends of
contemporary European scholarship.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because it underlines Spanish
historical peculiarities, acknowledging Arab influences in Spain’s life­
style would have contributed to separate the country from the European

4 Ibid., p. 323. See the much more subdued appraisal by Bruno LAURIOUX, Les livres de cui­
sine médiévaux, Turnhout, 1997. In his article “Les livres de cuisine italiens à la fin du XVe et au
début du XVIe siècle, expressions d’un syncrétisme culinaire méditerranéen”, La Mediterrània,
àrea de convergència de sistemes alimentaris (segles V-XVIU), Palma de Mallorca, 1996, 73-88,
Laurioux develops the subject of Catalan influences on Italian late Medieval cook-books and
points out Arab elements in Catalan cuisine.
5 Bernard ROSENBERGER, “La cuisine arabe et son apport à la culture européenne”, Histoire
de Valimentation, sous la direction de J.-L. Flandrin et M. Montanari, Paris, 1996, pp. 345-365.
6 Maxime RODINSON, “Recherches sur les documents arabes relatifs à la cuisine”, Revue des
Etudes Islamiques, 1949, pp. 95-165.
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 37

context to which it had always aspired to belong. The story of Spanish Arab
studies up to the middle of the 20th century can not be understood with­
out taking into consideration that the main scholars always tried to rec­
oncile their field of enquiry with an view of Spain as a Christian and there­
fore European entity. Arabists were not alone in their pursuit; in a bibli­
ography of Spanish books recently published, covering titles published on
cooking and related matters from the introduction of printing up to 1975,
there is only one entry on “Arab” cooking, and it belongs to a book on
“exotic” cuisines of the whole world.7
In 1960, Fernando de la Granja, in an abstract of his doctoral disserta­
tion, alluded briefly to the “controversial topic of Arab influences on
Spanish cuisine.”8 The dissertation -an edition and translation of the
Andalusi cook-book written by Ibn Razin in the 13th century- was unfor­
tunately never published, and Granja did not pursue his early interest in
the subject.9 It was also in the 60’s that a curious article by Luis Antonio
de Vega appeared in the journal Archivos del Institute de Estudios
Africanos, dealing with the topic of the influence of Moroccan cuisine on
Spanish gastronomy.10 The institute and the journal were a relic of the
Spanish colonial presence in North Africa, and the author of the article, a
journalist and novelist today completely forgotten, had lived for many
years in Morocco. Both isolated efforts, Granja’s scholarly work and Vega’s
superficial and coulourful approach are not to be compared, but somehow
they represent a significant precedent of what was to come in later years.
The recovery of the Andalusi past as a prestigious part of Spanish his­
tory has been a notable feature of recent historiography, and in a wider
sphere, of the media-induced phenomenon identifying the Spanish
Middle-Ages with a paradisiacal heaven of harmony between the “three
cultures”, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish. In the 80’s and 90’s, the image
of al-Andalus as a source of cultural and religious understanding has
reached mythical proportions, and helped by the many sociological and
political changes of this period, has contributed to create a new vision of
the Islamic past in Spain. The “Andalusi legacy” has become a trade­
mark, vigorously backed by some regional authorities in search of histori-

7 Maria del Carmen SIMÔN PALMER, Bibliografîa de la gastronomîa y la alimentacion en

Espana, Gijon, 2003.
8 Fernando de la GRANJA, La cocina arâbigoandaluza segun un manuscrito inédito, Madrid,
1960.
9 With the exception of a short article, “Nota sobre la mafleta de los judios de Fez”, Al-
Andalus XXV (1960), pp. 235-238.
10 “La cocina marroqui y su influencia en la gastronomia espanola”, Archivos del Instituto de
Estudios Africanos, 20, n° 81 (1966), pp. 29-55.
38 M anuela M arin

cal roots for their political claims.11 Food history has been a privileged
subject in this pursuit, and amateur historians, cooks and food-journalists
have contributed to the creation of a now generally accepted assumption.
According to this there existed in al-Andalus a superior model of gastro­
nomic satisfaction, which exerted its influence on Spanish cuisine in its
best aspects, both sensual and dietetic. Wrongfully disdained for a long
period of time, this legacy has to be recovered and it should receive a
place of honor in the history of the Mediterranean diet and ways of life.12
Arabists and historians have carefully adventured into this minefield,
avoiding generalisations and concentrating on specific cases, with enough
documentary evidence to be presented as real examples of a cultural
exchange. Comparison of Andalusi and traditional Spanish recipes, analy­
sis of Arabic loanwords in Spanish, or the study of medieval documents
mentioning products imported from al-Andalus and other Islamic lands
have been some of the approaches used by scholars in recent years.13
Results of such a research are still few and much more has to be done
before a general panorama of the field can be established, but this is the
only way to look objectively at a topic unfortunately subjected today to ide­

11 See a critical appraisal of the phenomenon in José Antonio Gonzalez ALCANTUD, Lo moro:
las logicas de la derrota y la formacion del estereotipo islâmico, Barcelona, 2002.
12 To signal only some of the titles related to this subject, I shall quote Elena SANTONJA,
“La influencia arabe en la cocina espanola”, Aragon vive su historia. Actas de las II Jornadas
Internacionales de Cultura Islamica. Teruel, 1988, Madrid, 1990, pp. 303-307; José Aguilera
PLEGUEZUELO, La cocina hispanoârabe y las cocinas espanolas y del norte de Africa, Madrid,
1991; Luis Benavides-Barajas, Al-Andalus. La cocina y su historia, Motril, 1992; Inés
ELÉXPURU, La cocina de al-Andalus, Madrid, 1994; Josep PIERA, “L’orient d’al-Andalus, una
cuina de frontera”, L'Islam i Catalunya, Barcelona, 1998, pp. 275-276; José Aguilera
Pleguezuelo, Las cocinas ârabe y judia y la cocina espanola, Malaga, 2002. It also of interest to
note the translations of books which have contributed to create the idea of an Andalusi sophisti­
cated cuisine, like Lucie BOLENS, La cocina andaluza, un arte de vivir (siglos XI-XIII), Madrid,
1992 (French edition, 1990: La cuisine andalouse, un art de vivre), and Farouk MARDAM-BEY,
La cocina de Ziryab, el gran sibarita del califato de Cordoba, Barcelona, 2002 (French edition,
1998, La cuisine de Ziryâb: propos de tables, impressions de voyages et recettes pouvant servir d ’ini­
tiation pratique à la gastronomie arabe). The Spanish rendering of this last title is particularly
revealing.
13 See, for instance, Carmen BARCELÔ, “Almoisavena y arnadi. De la cocina arabe a la valen-
ciana”, Xàtiva, fira d ’agost 1984, pp. 61-63; Expiracion GARCÏA SÂNCHEZ, “La gastronomfa andalusi”,
El zoco. Vida economica y artes tradicionales en al-Andalus y Marruecos, Barcelona, 1995, pp. 49-57;
Guillem Rossello i Bordoy, “Pervivències de la cuina andalusina en la cuina tradicional mallorquina”,
La Mediterrània, àrea de convergència de sistemes alimentaris (segles V-XVIII), Palma de Mallorca,
1996, pp. 615-626; Pere Balana i Abadia, “Probable origen àrab del torro d’Alacant”, Actes Ir
Col.loqui dHistoria de lAlimentacio a la Corona d ’Arago, Lleida, 1995, II, pp. 971-988; Antoni Riera
Melis, “Las plantas que llegaron de Levante: acerca del legado alimentario islamico en la Cataluna
medieval”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 31 (2001), pp. 787-841; Teresa de CASTRO, “Moorish
heritage in the cuisines of Spain and Portugal”, Encyclopaedia o f Food and Culture, New York, 2003,
II, pp. 227-32.
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 39

ological appropiation and misuse.14 In what follows I shall first analyse the
evidence offered by Spanish food-related words of Arabic origin, turning
later to a case-study of two of these words, founded upon other documen­
tary evidence drawn from Arabic, Catalan, and Spanish texts.

History and philology: Arabic into Spanish.15

Arabic loanwords related to food and food-related matters have not yet
been the subject of a monographical study, although “arabismos” -the
Spanish word for these loanwords- are a most fruitful field in Spanish
scholarship.16 However, it was not until recently that a dictionary of
Arabic loanwords documented in the Romance languages of the Iberian
Peninsula was published by Federico Corriente, the leading Spanish
scholar in the field of Arab linguistics and philology. Thanks to his work,17
it is now possible to initiate specific studies focused on particular seman­
tic fields. In the case of food, the richness of the materials gathered by
Corriente can not be dealt with in its totality in the present article, and I
have restricted my choice to words naming dishes, leaving aside those con­
nected with vegetables and other raw materials, spices and drinks. Arabic
loanwords only documented in Portuguese will not figure in this study.
A total of 31 words denoting dishes are found in the dictionary of
Corriente. Some of them are still used in everyday Spanish (alfajor,
almibar, mojama), but the majority of these words represent an older stage
of the language, going back to the period treated in this study, from the late
Middle Ages to the early Modern period.
These 31 words can be classified according to the characteristic of the
dishes they name. Largest in number are the sweets, of which 10 words are
found: alaju (variants: alhaju and alejur), alcorza, alcotm, alfajor, alfan-

14 In which the Spanish media and publicists are not alone: some Arab authors of rich imag­
ination propose an Arab origin for the word “paella”.
15 To avoid confusion for the non-Spanish readers, in this article I shall use “Spanish” in the
sense of “Castilian”, although the latter word was commonly used to designate the language in the
Middle Ages and in later historical periods.
16 An exception is the article by Elena PEZZI MARTINEZ, “Algunos arabismos relacionados
con la gastronomia”, Boletin de la Asociacion Espanola de Orientalistas, XXXI (1995), pp. 95-108.
The author studies eight Arabic loanwords, but her conclusions are to be taken with some caution.
Bibliography on “arabismos” appears currently in the journal Aljamia, published by the
University of Oviedo.
17 Federido CORRIENTE, Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid,
1999.
40 M anuela M arin

doque, alfenique, almibar, almojabana, arnadi and arrucaique. After the

sweets, dishes with cereals as their main ingredient are the most abundant,
a total of seven: alcuzcuz(u) (variant: cuzcuz),18 aletria, (a)talvina, fideos,
gacha(s), regaifa19 and zahma. Four meat dishes have names of Arabic ori­
gin: adafina,20 alb/mondiga, andrajo, and atafea. Fish follow closely, with
three dishes: (al)mojama, cebiche/escabeche, and mauraca/moraga. One
might also add three sauces: alidem,21 almodrote and almori.
(Al)boromalalmoroma is a vegetable dish, and ta(gu)iton, one made with
eggs. Finally, two words record different cooking processes:
alcamonia/alcamomas (seeds used as flavouring), and moxi/mojt, defined
as “a cake” in Corriente’s dictionary but, as it will be shown below, rather
a cooking method to be applied to different dishes.
If we accept loanwords as evidence of cultural transmission, it seems
clear that the main impact of Andalusi cuisine on Spanish cooking was
exerted in the realm of sweets, thus confirming the general assumption
existing around the subject.22 Sweets, however, are a marginal consump­
tion in terms of food, as their main ingredientes (sugar, almonds, pista­
chios, etc.) were rather expensive. The presence of sweets of Andalusi ori­
gin in the Spanish vocabulary would therefore denote a process of adop­
tion of “exotic” food for the well-off. On the other end of the scale, cereals
appear as the staple food of Andalusian population, and their presence in
the list of Arabic loanwords adequately reflect their substantial role in al-
Andalus as in Spain.23 The low number of dishes based upon meat and fish
is not surprising, but it has to be noted that two of the fish dishes189203

18 As the dish gradually disappeared from Spanish cuisine, the word now used to name it
comes from the French contemporary version: cuscus.
19 See on this dish the study by Xaime VARELA, “A proposito de algunos arabismos relativos
a la alimentacion en la documentacion medieval de Galicia”, El banquete de las palabras: la ali­
mentation en los textos drabes, Madrid (in press).
20 The word is clearly of Arabic origin, but it names a dish made by Jews for the Sabbath.
21 This is a Catalan word, as will be shown below; the dictionary of Corriente does not record
the Spanish alideme.
22 Expiracion GARCIA SÂNCHEZ, “El sabor de lo dulce en la gastronomia andalusi”,
Fernando Nuez (ed.), La herencia drabe en la agricultura y el bienestar de Occidente, Valencia,
2002, pp. 194-196. See also Ana Labarta et Carmen Barcelo, “Le sucre en Espagne (711-1610)”,
JATBA 35 (1988), pp. 175-193 et Rosa KUHNE BRABANT, “Le sucre et le doux dans l’alimen­
tation d’al-Andalus”, Médiévales, 33 (1997), pp. 55-67.
23 See Expiracion GARCIA SÂNCHEZ, “La triada mediterranea en al-Andalus”, Con pan,
aceite y vino... la triada mediterrdnea a través de la historia, Granada, 1997, pp. 99-127 et Bernard
ROSENBERGER, “Diversité des manières de consommer les céréales dans le Maghreb precolo­
nial”, Manuela MARIN and David WAINES (eds.), La alimentation en las culturas isldmicas,
Madrid, 1994, pp. 295-354.
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 41

((al)mojama and cebiche/escabeche) are, in fact, methods for preserving

fish.24 Finally, it is noteworthy that the only vegetable dish is one made of
aubergines (alboronia);25 as will soon be shown, this vegetable was also
the base of a culturally marked dish, the cazuela moji, whose Arab origins
were widely acknowledged in Spanish classical cook-books and literature.
Loanwords are not, far from it, the only documentary evidence at our
disposal for tracing Arab influences in Spanish classical cooking.
Research based upon other materials, such as archival documents or liter­
ary texts, would undoubtedly help towards a better understanding of how
and to what extent Andalusian cooking habits were accepted by a Spanish
society whose fundamental identity was being built through the rejection
of the conquered Andalusi population as a foreign element which had to
be either absorbed or expelled. Thus the existence of Arabic loanwords in
Spanish might be understood from a many-sided perspective, reflecting
the variable levels of acceptance of Andalusi cultural traditions. Food
would pertain to the “non-menacing” aspects of these traditions that could
be easily integrated into Christian mainstream culture, as were crafts and
other practical skills. In this respect, some areas are particularly well
known, as happenned with the architectural style labelled as “mudejar,”26
which incorporated into Christian buildings -churches, private houses and
royal palaces- unmistakable characteristics of Andalusi origin.
Because of the recent incorporation of food in the canon of historical
research, we still lack the kind of monographical studies that have estab­
lished sound foundations for further discussion in subjects such as art or
literary history. An initial step in this direction could be to examine the
“story” of Arab loanwords in Spanish, and to check, whenever possible,
their presence and evolution in Spanish texts, as well as their use in
Andalusi sources. This will be the aim of the last part of this article, in
which a case-study of two Arab loanwords is presented.

24 On fish consumption in al-Andalus, see Maria PAZ TORRES, “El pescado en la gas-
tronomia arabe mediterranea: al-Andalus”, Aurelio PEREZ JIMENEZ and Gonzalo CRUZ
ANDREOTTI (eds.) Dieta mediterranea. Comidas y habitos alimenticios en las culturas mediter­
ranean. Madrid, 2000, pp. 159-181.
25 On the early versions of this dish in the Islamic East, see Manuella MARIN, “Sobre Buran y
bUraniyya ”, Al-Qantara, II (1981), pp. 193-207.
26 The Spanish mudejar (from the Arabic mudajjan) refers to Muslims living under Christian
political power.
42 M anuela M arin

Alidem and cazuela moji

The Libre de Sent Sovi, probably written at the beginning of the 14th cen­
tury, is one of the oldest European cook-books, and certainly the oldest on
written in Catalan.27 Its editor, the late Rudolf Grewe, identified some of
the words used by the anonymous author of Sent Sovi as being of Arabic
origin. This is the case of the alidem, a sauce used in several culinary con­
fections, and specially for meat (pork, kid, chicken, birds and poultry in
general).28 In his notes to the first occurrence of the word alidem in Sent
Sovi, Grewe simply said “it seems to be of Arabic origin.”29 According to
Corriente, the Arab original word is alidam, in Andalusi Arabic, and idam
in classical Arabic, meaning “food eaten with bread” and “seasoning or
condiment for bread”, respectively.30
Although the original Arab word is very general in meaning, the recipes
for alidem in Sent Sovi are quite specific, and have little relationship with
the original meaning in Arabic.31 In a recipe for “any kind of meat”, ali­
dem is prepared in the following manner. Herbs and spices are boiled in
meat-broth. Then eggs are beaten and vinegar or sour grape juice is added
to them. This mixture is added to the cooled broth. When the meat dish is
cooked, the egg-sauce is added to it, and the dish is put to heat over hot
coal.32 This is the basic way of making alidem, with very slight variations
in other recipes.33 It could be defined as a sauce of eggs beaten with vine­
gar and mixed with broth, a creamy sauce added to roasted meats or to any
kind of cooked meats.
A very similar recipe is found in the cook-book of Mestre Robert, the
second catalan collection of recipes, first published in 1520 in Barcelona.
The book of Mestre Robert was soon translated into Spanish and published

27 Libre de Sent Sovi (receptari de cuina), ed. Rudolf GREWE, Barcelona, 1979.
28 Sent Sovi, p. 151, chapter 128; p. 153, chapters 130 and 131; p. 154, chapter 132; p. 155,
chapters 133 and 134; p. 156, chapter 135; p. 185, chapter 177, and p. 186, chapter 178.
29 Sent Sovi, p. 152, note 1. On a general appraisal of Arab elements in Sent Sovi, see Bernard
ROSENBERGER, “La cuisine arabe et son apport à la culture européenne”, pp. 362-363.
30 Frederico CORRIENTE, Diccionario de arabismos, p. 176; id., A Dictionary of Andalusi
Arabic, Leiden, 1997, p. 8; E. W. LANE, An Arabic-English Lexicon, London, 1863, I, p. 36.
31 This is not an exceptional case. Within the same semantical field, Spanish words of Arab
origin might acquire new meanings, thus reflecting historical changes and accomodations to new
realities. Frederico Corriente, “Arabismos del catalan”, Estudios de Dialectologia Norteafricana y
Andalusi, 1 (1997), p. 16, prefers however the classical meaning to the evidence offered by
Catalan cook-books.
32 Sent Sovi, p. 151, chapter 128.
33 Honey may be added to it to play down the taste of vinegar or sour grape juice.
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 43

in 1525, becoming the most popular cook-book in 16th century Spain. Of

uncertain authorship, the Spanish version was attributed to Ruperto de
Nola,34 and it contains several recipes not found in the Catalan edition;
one of them will be examined below.
The recipe of alidem by Mestre Robert35 has no significant differences
compared to that of Sent Sovi, but in contrast with the older cook-book,
where it is mentioned in several occasions, the word appears only once in
the Libre del Coch. This unique instance of alidem in a book of wide cir­
culation in its century might be an indication of the gradual disappearance
of both the name and the recipe, both the alidem and the sauce so named.
Many Spanish words of Arab origin were lost when the things they named
became obsolete.36
In this case, however, things appear to be a little more complex. Sent
Sovi also mentions a sauce made of eggs and vinegar or sour-grape juice
very similar to the alidem, although not bearing this name. Thus we have,
in Sent Sovi, a sauce for a dish of hens, made with beaten eggs mixed with
chicken broth and bread soaked in vinegar. Different versions of the same
sauce are dispersed throughout the book.37 As it was the case with the ali­
dem, the basic elements of this sauce are broth, eggs, and vinegar, and the
author of the recipes carefully insists in the measures to be taken for a suc-
cesful result: beating the eggs with vinegar to prevent them from coagulat­
ing when poured over the dish; avoiding the dish to boil after the sauce is
poured, and taking care of the level of heat under the dish. The creamy
consistency of the sauce was its main characteristic, enhanced by the fla­
vors of the spices in the broth, and of the vinegar. All the dishes for which
this sauce is recommended are, like in the case of alidem, meat dishes. As
a first conclusion, then, it would seem that the same recipe appears in Sent
Sovi either unnamed, or with a name of Arab origin.
Eggs beaten with vinegar or sour-grape juice are present in the Libre del
Coch of Mestre Robert, as the final step in some recipes. A significant dif­

34 On manuscripts of the work and 16th century editions, see the introductions by the editors to
the Catalan and Spanish versions: Mestre ROBERT, Libre del coch. Tractat de cuina medieval, ed.
Veronika LEIMBRUGER, Barcelona, 1982 (first edition, 1977); Ruperto de NOLA, Libro de
Guisados, ed. Dionisio PEREZ, Madrid, 1929. A useful bibliography of old cook-books in Spain, by
M. C. SIM6N PALMER, Libros antiguos de cultura alimentaria (siglo XV-1900), Cordoba, 1994.
35 Mestre Robert, Libre del coch, p. 66, n° 94; Nola, Libro de Guisados, p. 94, uses alideme.
36 See Felipe Maillo SALGADO, Los arabismos del espanol en la Baja Edad Media,
Salamanca, 1983, p. 351.
37 Sent Sovi, p. 101-2, chapter 57; p. 103-4, chapter 59; p. 122, chapter 68; p. 156, chapter
136.
44 M anuela M arin

ference with Sent Sovi is that in Libre del Coch the alidem (in the Spanish
version, alideme), as well as the mixture of eggs and acidulated sub­
stances, are used in dishes of vegetables, not meat. A confection of pump­
kin ends with this mixture poured over it, and sugar and cinnamon sprin­
kled on the dish.38 Although similar in taste to the alidem, this mixture is
not considered to be a sauce, but the last stage in the preparation of a dish.
However, the similarity in the culinary elements used is striking, and in
other instances found in the Libre del Coch, the connection with an Arab
background surfaces again, as we will now see.
Two dishes, one of aubergines and the other of pumpkin, are labelled
by Mestre Robert “a la morisca”.39 In the first recipe, aubergines are fried
in pork grease or “in sweet oil, because Moors do not eat pork”. Once
fried, they are put in a pot, with meat broth, cheese and coriander. When
they are ready, eggs beaten with sour-grape juice are added. In the pump­
kin recipe,40 eggs are also added at the end, but they are not beaten with
sour-grape juice; instead, sugar and cinnamon are sprinkled over the dish.
The common feature in these two recipes is the adding of beaten eggs
at the end, with or without an acid element. From the Sent Sovi to the Libre
del Coch, the evolution seems clear: from a sauce with an Arab name, to
an element of this sauce identified with the “Moorish” character of the
dish, in parallel to a shift from meat to vegetable dishes. But the Libre del
Coch offers another and closely related insight into the Andalusi traces in
Spanish cuisine, and this is the recipe of cazuela moji.
The text of the recipe is only preserved by the Spanish version of the
Libre del Coch, the Libro de Guisados attributed to Ruperto de Nola. It is a
recipe of aubergines, fried in oil and mixed with grated and roasted bread,
several spices and cheese. Eggs beaten with pepper, saffron and clove are
finally added, and the dish is then ready to set under an iron cover with
hot coals on it. Similar preparations with carrots or bete are recommend-
ed.4142
The cazuela moji is well documented in Spanish literature. One of the
characters in Los banos de Argel, a play by Miguel de Cervantes, makes
his entrance in the stage holding a cazuela moji.42 While this character is

38 Mestre ROBERT, Libre del Coch, p. 57 (n° 72); Nola, Libro de Guisados, p. 79.
39 Mestre ROBERT, Libre del Coch, p. 56 (n° 70); Nola, Libro de Guisados, p. 77.
40 Mestre ROBERT, Libre del Coch, p. 58 (n° 73); Nola, Libro de Guisados, pp. 79-80.
41 NOLA, Libro de Guisados, p. 121.
42 Miguel de Cervantes, Los banos de Argel, ed. Florencio Sevilla Arroyo et Antonio Rey
Hazas, Madrid, 1998, 1670-71. The play was probably written between 1606 and 1610 (editors’
introduction, p. IV).
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 45

a Christian verger, the play is located in a Muslim context, the city of

Algiers, and the second character in the scene is a Jew, who tries to buy
the cazuela moji from the Christian. Against the Muslim background, this
appearance of the cazuela moji can be interpreted as being a “multi-cul­
tural” and interreligious symbol, a dish shared by the different religious
communities of the Mediterranean historical context of the early 17th
century. By this time, the “Morisco” community was living its last years
in Spain, but the image rendered by Cervantes in his play was one of
mutual acknowledgement of cultural awareness, personified in a specific
dish.
Probably the best repertoire of dishes of “Morisco” origin is found at
the beginning of the picaresque novel La lozana andaluza, by Francisco
Delicado, first published in 1528. Among the many delicacies that the
main character in the novel, the woman called lozana andaluza, learnt to
cook in Cordoba from her grandmother, are the berenjenas mojies en perfi-
cion; she also mentions cazuelas moriscas.434It is of interest to note that, at
the end of her catalogue of specialities, the lozana asserts her own culinary
superiority to the famed “Platina, De voluptatibus, y Apicio Romano, De re
coquinaria. 44
Throughout the 16th century, the cazuela moji or the berenejenas mojies,
as the lozana calls the dish, are known as a dish of at least Arab reminis­
cences. In Don Quijote, Sancho Panza makes the revealing comment that
“por la mayor parte he oido decir que los moros son amigos de berenje­
nas.”45 The inclusion of the cazuela moji in the list of dishes known to the
lozana is not therefore suprising, as the whole contents of the list reflects
a local Cordoban cuisine deeply influenced by the culinary Arab tradi-
tion.46 Specialists in the history of Spanish literature, and more especial­
ly those who had analyzed the text in La lozana have not always recognized
this fact. Claude Allaigre, in his edition of the text, fails to see that the list
of dishes is full of Spanish words of Arabic origin, and when this is not the
case, of dishes and confections of obvious Arab roots. For Allaigre, this
culinary display is used by Francisco Delicado as a marker for the world
of “conversos”, Jews living in Spain who had been forced to convert to
Christianity.47 Aubergines were, says Allaigre, a typical “converso” food,

43 Francesco Delicado, La lozana andaluza, ed. Bruno DAMIANI, Madrid, 1969, p. 39.
44 Ibid.
45 Miguel de Cervantes, Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, ed.
Florencio Sevilla ARROYO, Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2002, chapter 2.
46 See Expiracion GARCIA SANCHEZ, “La gastronomia andalusi” .
47 Francesco Delicado, Retrato de la Lozana andaluza, ed. Claude Allaigre, Madrid, 1985, p.
178-9.
46 M anuela M arin

and so the presence of the cazuela moji in the list of the lozana emphasizes
the author’s intention of presenting her as a “conversa”.48
In an article published in 1989, Monique Joly presented a much more
nuanced view of this list. She acknowledges the ambiguity of certain liter­
ary devices used by Francisco Delicado in the construction of his main
character, who appears equally linked to “converso” and to “morisco”
communities. Nonetheless, Joly underlines that the list of dishes known by
the lozana points undoubtedly to a debt to Arab cuisine,49 something that
was already noted by Fernando de la Granja in I960.50

As noted above, a dish of aubergines prepared “a la morisca”/'cazuela moji

would be recognised as part of the Arab culinary heritage, shared by
Christians and Jews in the Iberian context of the 16th and 17th centuries.
spanish lexicographers in the same period pointed rightly so the cultural
and linguistic origins of the word moji. In his Tesoro de la lengua castellana
o espanola, Covarrubias defines moxi as “cierto genero de cazuela quajada
de que usavan los moros.”51 When the Spanish Royal Academy published,
en 1726, its Diccionario de Autoridades, the definition of cazuela moxi does
not differ from the recipes quoted above. In fact, one of the sources of the
Diccionario de Autoridades is the cook-book by Francisco Martinez
Montino, who was the royal cook of Felipe III (r. 1598-1621) and author of
an Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizcocheria y Conserveria: “para una cazuela
moxi son menester dos o tres docenas de berengenas”. The Arab origin of
the word is likewise recorded.52
Philological and literary arguments are quite clear in this case, and as
in many others, would be enough to ascertain the link between words and

48 A similar position is taken by Marcella CICERI, “La “berenjena”: un cibo connotante”,

Maria GRAZIA PROFETI (ed.), Codici del gusto, Milano, 1992, pp. 87-94.
49 Monique JOLY, “A proposito del tema culinario en La Lozana andaluza”, Journal o f Hispanic
Philology XIII (1989), 125-133. Joly’s conclusions are accepted by Silvia MONTI, “Alimentacion y
metaforas alimentarias en La lozana andaluza de Francisco Delicado”, Antonio Garrido ARANDA
(ed.), Comer cultura. Estudios de cultura alimentaria, Cordoba, 2001, pp.253-264.
50 Fernando de la GRANJA, La cocina arnbigoandaluza segun un manuscrito inédito, p. 15.
51 Sebastian de COVARRUBIAS, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o espanola. Primer dic­
cionario de la lengua (1611), Madrid, 1979, p. 817.
52 Real Academia Espanola, Diccionario de Autoridades, facsimile edition, Madrid, 1963, I,
p. 248. The book by Martinez MONTINO was published in 1611. A contemporary of his, Domingo
Hernandez de Maceras, used another word, “monjil” (“like a nun”), in an obvious semantic dis­
placement from the original “moji”, which had lost any meaning for him (See Maria Angeles
PÉREZ SAMPER, La alimentacion en la Espana del Siglo de Oro. Domingo Hernandez de
Maceras, "Libro del arte de cocina", Huesca, 1998, p. 236).
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 47

the things they name. We are, however, fortunate in having other evidence
to add to that examined till now. Andalusi culinary texts, and particulary
the cook-book by Ibn Razln al-Tujibt, allow us to establish a close con­
nection between the recipes found in Sent Sovi and the Libre del Coch (and
its Spanish version) and some culinary techniques used in al-Andalus.
The Fadalat al-khiwan f - tayyibat al-tacam wa-l-alwan by Ibn Razln,
a native of Murcia, was written during the 13th century.53 Although the
book reflects mainly the classical tradition of Arab cooking, it has a dis­
tinctive Andalusi character, and some of the vocabulary used by the author
has Hispano-romance roots.54 Moreover, Ibn Razln was aware of several
culinary techniques used by his Christian neighbours, as was the case with
the sauce called jalja (“salsa”).55
A whole chapter in the book is devoted to aubergines, for which 22
recipes are given.56 Seven of them have a common characteristic: after
being boiled and fried in different ways and with different herbs and
spices, aubergines are put in a pot, covered with beaten eggs and then left
to slowly thicken over a light fire. Compared to the technique used for the
alidem, the main difference is that in the Andalusi cook-book, vinegar or
other acidulated ingredients are not mixed with eggs but poured on the
broth where aubergines are first cooked. For a better understanding of the
similarities and differences of these recipes, I give here their translation,
having selected only one among the seven found in the Fadala.

This is a typical recipe by Ibn Razln:

“Take all the aubergines you may wish, peel them and cut them in
slices. Put them in a pot with water and salt and bring the pot to the fire to
boil the aubergines. When they are ready, take them out of the pot and put
them on a board or in a sieve. Then you take a clean pot and pour water in
it, with salt, oil, almorti,57 vinegar, pepper, dry coriander, some cumin,
marjoram, garlic and chopped onions. Put the pot on the fire. When it boils
and the content is ready, take a clean frying pan and put it on the fire, with
oil. When the oil is hot, fry the aubergines, turning them over. Take the
aubergines from the frying pan and put them in the pot with the broth, after53467

53 See Fernando de la Granja, La cocina arabigoandaluza segun un manuscrito inédito, and

the introduction to the edition of the Fadala by Muhammad Ben ShaqrUn, Beirut, 1984.
54 See Manuela Marin, “Cuisine d’Orient, cuisine d’Occident”, Médiévales 33 (1997), pp. 9-21.
55 Ibn Raz-n, Fadâla, pp. 101-102.
56 Ibid., pp. 227-236.
57 This is a cereal sauce of complex preparation; see David WAINES, “Murrl: the tale of a
condiment”, Al-Qantara, XII (1991), pp. 371-378.
48 M anuela M arin

taking out the garlic and the onions. Leave it to boil and then put in it egg-
yolks. When they are thickened, take eggs and beat them with bread
crumbs and spices. This mixture will cover the content of the pot. Take the
fire from underneath the pot and put the pot over embers, to reduce the
heat. And serve it in a great plate, sprinkling it with pepper and cinna­
mon.”58
The recipe of aubergines “a la morisca”, by Mestre Robert, reads as fol-
lows:“Take the aubergines, cut them in four parts and peel them. And then
boil them. When they are ready, take them off the fire and put them
betweem two boards. And then crush them, put them in the pot and fry
them carefully with good lard or with sweet oil, because the Moors do not
eat lard. When they are fried, put boil them in a pot, and add a good broth
of fat meat, and grated cheese, of good quality, and ground coriander. And
then fashion them as if they were pumpkins. When they are ready, add
egg-yolks beaten with sour-grape juice, as if they were pumpkins.”59
Finally, this is the cazuela moji in the Libro de Guisados:
“Take aubergines, neither big nor small, but of a medium size. Cut
them in halves and boil them with salt. When they are ready, drain them
in a rough cloth. Then crush them carefully and put them in a frying pan
or a saucepan, and add a good quantity of oil, toast bread crumbs and grat­
ed cheese. After a while, take ground dry coriancer, carvi, pepper, clove
and a bit of ginger, and put all these spices in the pot, with some eggs, until
they thicken. Then take a pot and pour a small quantity of oil and put
everything in it. And beat some eggs with pepper, saffron and clove, and
with toasted bread and grated cheese. All this has to let thicken and to set­
tle as in a bundle. And put egg-yolks and toasted it thicken in the oven or
with a cuajadera, which is an iron cover with hot coals on it. When it is
ready, take it from the fire and pour over it a bowl of very good honey and
polvoraduque. ”60
The recipe of the cazuela moji was qualified by its editor as extremely
confusing,61 and the translation offered here is an attempt to make sense
of it. Comparing the ingredients used and the methods of cooking might

58 IBN RAZ-N, Fadala, p. 228, n. 3.

59 Libre del Coch, p. 56 (n° 70); Libro de Guisados, p. 77.
60 NOLA, Libro de Guisados, pp. 121-122. Polvoraduque was a mixture of clove, ginger, sugar
and cinnamon (Real Academia Espanola, Diccionario de la lengua espanola, Madrid, 1992, p.
1160).
61 NOLA, Libro de Guisados, note 245 (p. 231).
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 49

help to understand the evolution experienced by these three recipes.

Ingredients used are summarized in the following table:

I n g r e d ie n ts F a d a la L ib r e d e l C o c h L ib r o d e G u isa d o s

Salt X X
Oil / sweet oil X X X
Lard X
Almorf X
Vinegar X
Sour-grape juice X
Coriander (dry) X X X
Cumin X
Marjoram X
P epper X X
Carvi X
Clove X X
Ginger X X
Saffron X
Cinnamon X X
Garlic X
Onion X
Eggs X X X
Honey X
Sugar X X
Cheese X X
Broth X X
Bread crumbs X X

The choice of ingredients is much more restricted in the Libre del Coch
than in the other two recipes, but both in the Fadala and in the Libre del
Coch an acidulated ingredient is present (vinegar and sour-grape juice)
and broth is used in the cooking process. Perhaps the most notable differ­
ence between the recipe in the Libre del Coch and the two others is the fact
that in the Catalan cook-book the only herb or spice used is coriander.
Now, the connections between the Fadala and the Libro de Guisados are
closer than it may seem. Both recipes use a great variety of herbs and
spices, and their choice is identical in several cases; both combine the
sweet taste of sugar, honey, and cinnamon, to the pungent flavor of pepper.
Bread crumbs are also present in both recipes. The most notable differ­
ence between these two recipes is the absence of cheese in the Fadala,
while this ingredient is used by the Catalan and Spanish recipes.
50 S tephen M ennell

Turning now to the method of cooking, it is practically identical in the

three recipes. Aubergines are first boiled and drained, then fried, crushed
and covered with beaten eggs. After frying them, broth is also used in the
Fadala and the Libre del Coch, but not in the Libro de Guisados. And the
final touch to the recipe is shared by the Fadala and the Libro de Guisados,
both recommending to sprinkle the dish with a mixture of spices.
Common links between the recipes are striking, both in the choice of
ingredients and in the cooking process, and it would be reasonable to
assume that they belong to the same culinary tradition. But more signifi­
cant, perhaps, is the fact that throughout the book by Ibn Razln, crowning
a dish with beaten eggs and leaving the pot to thicken a common usual
technique, called takhmir (“covering, concealing”).62 Exemples are too
frequent to be quoted in full, but the takhmir, or the recommendation to
make it (tukhammir), applies to many dishes of meat and poultry, as well
as to confections of vegetables, like the recipes of aubergines just men­
tioned. It appears, thus, that the use of takhmu was a peculiarity of the
Andalusi culinary tradition, and as such, easily identifiable by foreign
observers.63
It is impossible to determine, however, the ways of transmission from
Ibn Razln to Sent Sovi and the Libre del Coch/Libro de Guisados, or even to
ascertain a direct influence from the first in the Catalan and Spanish culi­
nary texts. Scientific and especially medical works were translated from
Arabic to Catalan in the 14th century, under the royal patronage of Jaime
II and Pedro el Ceremonioso,64 but no trace exists of a possible translation
of the Fadala. The text by Ibn Razln shows, however, that there was a con­
tinuity between Andalusi cuisine and the recipes directly ascribed to the
“Moors” (“a la morisca”) or bearing a name of Arabic origin (cazuela moji)
in Catalan and Spanish cook-books of the late 14th-16th centuries. The
presence of the same name in Spanish literary evidence bears witness to
the popularity of the dish, and its connection with the Arab past of the
Peninsula, still alive in the Morisco community. The evolution and

62 The edited text of the Fadala has the reading tahmir (“removing, stripping”).
63 See David WAINES, “The Culinary Culture of al-Andalus”, The Legacy o f Muslim Spain,
Salma Kh. JAYYUSI (ed.), Leiden, 1992, p. 733. Moreover, D. Waines quotes an Andalusi hisba
(“market regulations”) treatise of the 10th century, in which this practice is forbidden to the cooks
operating in the public market, “because this concealed what was underneath.”
64 Expiracion GARCIA SANCHEZ, “La traduccion catalana medieval del Kitab al-Agdiya
(Tratado de los alimentos) de Avenzoar”, Actes lr Col.loqui dHistdria de TAlimentacio a la Corona
dArago, Edat Mitjana, Lleida, 1995, 363-386. On the relationships between Arab and Catalan,
see rmen BARCEL6, “Llengua arab i llengua catalana: intercanvis baixmedivals”, i
Catalunya, Barcelona, 1998, 269-273.
 From al-A ndalus to Spain: A rab traces in Spanish cooking 51

changes of meaning, from classical Arabic to Spanish, point to the process

of adaptation from one culture to the other, and to the permeability of oral
traditions and their written forms, something especially true in the case of
food borrowings.