A librarian and a food historian rediscovered the recipes of Moorish Spain
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
On the other side, I hate to critizice this article as publishing old discovered content is fascinating, but I want to clear some points:
- Spain was not always a peaceful time for Jews and Christians during the Muslim domination. There were massacres/pogroms[1][2], and most of the Christian population were forced to leave (by intimidation or by increasing the tax for being non Muslim (jizyah). These emigrants were called Mozarabs[3] and they had an unique culture. Don't get me wrong, the other side would have done the almost the same and later, indeed, they did (see points bellow).
- The name of Andalusia (the southern region of Spain) comes from Al-Andalus, but Al-Andalus was bigger than that as the name referred to all territory held by the Muslim conquerors[4].
- Muslims were allowed to stay in Spain when the Christian kingdoms took Granada. But as you can image, most of them fled to Northern-Africa and other places. The ones that remained, rebelled against the Crown in 1499[5] and were expelled in 1609[6].
- Jews were expelled (or forced to convert to Christiany) in 1492[7]. Spain was the last country in Europe to do so, but it was a traumatic decision: the country had a big Jew population ("Judíos Sefardíes" in Spanish) with a unique culture (even their own language) and they have had important roles through all Spanish history.
- During its duration, the (damned) Spanish Inquisition killed 5000 people[8], tortured much more and detained more than 100000 inocent people. A tragedy of course, but considering that the institution lasted for almost 4 centuries, the numbers are comparable to other puritanist/intransigent religious institutions of Europe[9]
To sum up, I don't like the idealization of some cultures. Most cultures clashed with others and that resulted in wars, death and pain. The History was written by the victors, and now we are here. I hope some non-Spaniards and loving History people see this comment useful. Thank you!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_of_C%C3%B3rdoba
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_Granada_massacre
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozarabs
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus (see the maps)
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_of_the_Alpujarras_(1...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
[9] https://www.statista.com/chart/19801/people-tried-and-execut...
By the way, "flew" is the past tense of "fly." But many Muslims likely fled to Northern Africa (the past tense of "flee").
It was bad of course, and most population despised it. Many politicians (liberals) tried to abolish it, but the conservatives counter-attacked several times by restating it. It was at last abolished in 1834.
It is mostly a good story because it is both true and also paints some of the mainstream western ideas, and Christianity in particular, in a bad light.
This is from a student journal so you can follow the link and look up their citations but this quote sums up what I want to express.
"In contrast, other scholars may argue that the position of minorities under the Ottomans was lenient compared to minority treatment elsewhere in the world, such as in certain parts of Europe. According to Edward Said, abuses of “Orientalism,” which he described as a Western way of “dominating” or “restructuring” the history of the Middle East because of prejudice against Arab-Islamic peoples, has caused a misconstruction of the historical narrative.2 According to Bruce Masters, Westerners were typically biased against Muslims, and often distorted realities in the relationships between Christians, Muslims and Jews under the Ottoman Empire.3 As such, it must be noted that historical interpretations, or misinterpretations, must be intensely scrutinized when discussing the position of Jews and Arabs under the Ottoman Empire."
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/242/the-position-of...
And on 5/6, at first Muslims were at first allowed to stay. Then forced to convert to Christianity by law, not societal pressure, leading to the rebellion you source. And then finally their converted ancestors were still expelled from the country.
> In 1126, a great number of Mozarabs were expelled to North Africa by the Almoravids. Other Mozarabs fled to Northern Iberia. This constituted the end of the Mozarabic culture in Al-Andalus. For a while, both in North Africa and in Northern Iberia, the Mozarabs managed to maintain their own separate cultural identity.
That's why there are several churches with mozarabic style in the north[1], for example.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozarabic_art_and_architecture
Those that fled/were expelled were the ones who still stuck to Christianity after living under Muslim rule for around four centuries. Defining them as emigrants is ignoring the key part of their identity.
Your new source even says
>Formerly used for the whole of the Iberian peninsula, the term is now usually restricted, at least in architecture, to the south, with Repoblación art and architecture used for the north.
« At the time of the expulsion from Spain, the day-to-day language of the Jews of different regions of the peninsula was hardly, if at all, different from that of their Christian neighbours, but there may have been some dialect mixing to form a sort of Jewish lingua franca. »
Otherwise, do you happen to know of any book (written in English, Spanish or even French) that talks at a reasonable length about the lasting cultural influences of the Arab society and culture on the Spanish society and culture after 1600? (i.e. after the Mozarabs were forced to leave). I'd imagine that in the same way the Arab cuisine had a lasting influence on parts of the Spanish cuisine the same (must of) happened to Arab laws that used to be in place in what is now Spain, Arab popular traditions and even the Arab language itself.
In Valencia, it's popularly accepted as a fact that the origin of paella is in the Albufera region next to the city.
I don't mean for this to sound snarky, I'm no historian and my knowledge about this is purely casual.
Similarity, Tapas and Meze are the same
This sounds amazing. I’ve been a fan of eggplant dishes for years, so I will have to try this (minus the dairy-style cheese).
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/best-...
However, the Arabic text has been known for a long time and was published almost 40 years ago already. I think there’s also a Spanish translation.
Also, I’m not sure what Nawal means by ‘discovering’ the British Library manuscript, since this manuscript was already mentioned in a translation of another Arab cookbook, the Sultan’s Feast (2020).
in spite of the name, it seems to go for accuracy featuring historical information and a nice section on cookbooks and sources, including the one treated in the op.
It's a great read. There's the scholarly stuff at the front, but most of it appears to be recipes.
in my local library system I found a copy of the +$555, five volume set of “Modernist cuisine : the art and science of cooking” by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet
And AFAIK public municipal libraries also participate in inter-library loan programs which can borrow from across the US.
I get not wanting to support him, but I think the overall gain from having the book available to any interested party trumps the minuscule impact one book sale has on Myhrvold or his businesses. I would encourage your library to buy a used copy if it's that important to you, because in that case no new revenue is generated for the authors.