[Sca-cooks] Andalusian = Middle Eastern?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Stefan wrote:
>I've heard Andalusian foods, and probably this specific site,
>suggested before for 'Middle Eastern' foods. I considered suggesting
>that myself in an an earlier message I posted to the Middle Eastern
>nibbles thread.
>
>However, what are the reasons to suggest that the foods of Andalusia
>were common or even used in the Middle East? They may both be Moslem,
>but Andalusia (I thought) was southern Spain and perhaps Morocco?
>That's a long way from the Middle East.

Two things here.

First, you are correct. Andalusia is NOT in the Middle East. Egypt 
isn't in the Middle East either, being in North Africa. Istanbul is 
not in the Middle East (it's in Europe).

  The Middle East is Southwest Asia (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, 
Palestine, the countries of the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Iran 
(there's more but i'll stop here)).

But Andalusia, North Africa, and Southwest Asia are in a cultural 
area better described as the Near East. This is because of shared 
language, religion, and culture (clearly with regional differences).

Second, a comparison of surviving SCA-period Arab language cookbooks 
shows that while there are regional differences (remember my 
comparison of the seasonings in the Andalusian and al-Baghdadi 
cookbooks), there are also a number of similarities. Cookbooks were 
valued in Muslim cultures in SCA period. They were copied and traded 
over great distances. The oldest known surviving copy of "The Book of 
the Description of Familiar Foods" was written in Egypt, and another 
was copied in Ottoman Turkey. Yet it contains nearly all recipes from 
the surviving copies of al-Baghdadi's cookbook, plus many more 
recipes. This shows that this cookbook not only was used in the 
Middle East and in North Africa - where most people speak Arabic - 
but was also used where the Turkish language was spoken.

The 13th c. Andalusian cookbook was not written by one author. Rather 
it is composed of recipes and tidbits copied from a number of 
different cookbooks. Chances are excellent at least some were 
imported from the Eastern centers of Arabic culture.

>Who were the "Ilkhans" and what connections to the mongol rulers of
>China are you talking about?

The rulers of the Persian Empire who were the descendents of the 
Mongols. (i think that answers both questions)

>Even so, it seems unlikely to me that tea/chai would have made it to
>the Middle East but not to Europe. Can anyone think of any other
>central or southwestern Asian item that made it to the Middle East
>but not to Europe within a reasonable time after that, which did
>later catch on in Europe?

If i'm remembering correctly, tea wasn't common in India until the 
English established large tea plantations there in the 17th century.

-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita