[Sca-cooks] alfajores/al-hasu

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Sat May 6 05:38:08 PDT 2006


On May 5, 2006, at 11:57 PM, David Friedman wrote:

>> These are cookies with filling of Arab origin. In Spain they date  
>> back to the 8th Century, although Argentineans declare them as a  
>> national creole dessert but they are thought to date back to the  
>> 19th only there. That is odd as the conquistadors brought Hispano- 
>> Arab concubines with them to the new world who in turn brought  
>> their recipes. Spanish alfajores (al-hasu in Arabic) are square  
>> not round as in South America. The idea is to fill them with  
>> quince. Now the question is does anyone have a dependable recipe  
>> for them and/or any more news on their history?
>> Sue
>
> Do you know what the evidence is that the date back to the 8th  
> century in Spain? I'm pretty sure there aren't any Spanish  
> cookbooks that early.

That caught my eye, too, and now I'm wondering if the date is  
somebody's estimation of when anything found in Spain, introduced by  
the Moors, showed up...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04





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