[Sca-cooks] Re: alfajores/al-hasu

[Suey]

Oops I have a typo here, my apologies. I guess I am too wrapped up with 
Ziryab: 

"These are cookies with filling of Arab origin. In Spain they date  
back to the *8th* Century."

 From what I can find so far is that they are first documented in the 
*14th* C. as a spice for hippocras (which makes no sense to me). The 
next mention is that the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1487 asked the Mayor 
and City Council of Medina Sidonia to send some to the king and queen at 
their military camp in Malaga. They are mentioned again in Dr. Andres de 
Leon's "Practica del Morbo Galico" in 1605 and as Robin Carroll-Mann 
points out there are obviously other references which I cannot lay my 
hands on so far. Curious Granado has no recipe for them as far as I can 
see. The pith of the matter is that Benavides does not cite his sources. 
Here he says: 'every Andalus place has a different recipe for this 
reason here is the most ancient' and he goes on to give it with NO nuts, 
which is driving me nuts! I am missing the Manual de las Mujeres in my 
research material, splendid info that there is a alfajores recipe there 
but as you see it contains nuts! Shall get a hold of a copy as soon as I 
get to Madrid but I have to give the talk and complete the alfajores 
recipe for the chef tomorrow without almonds or any other nuts or the 
Cultural Center will chop off my head :-! .
Cheers,
Sue

> From: David Friedman: . . .that the evidence is that the date back to the 8th century in Spain? I'm pretty sure there aren't any Spanish cookbooks.
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius": ...somebody's estimation of when anything found in Spain, introduced by the Moors, showed up... 


> From: Robin Carroll-Mann
> There is a recipe in the "Manual de Mugeres", a late 15th/early 16th c. 
> Spanish household manual.  One recipe is "Conserva de Alhaju".  Whenever 
> I make them, I describe them as honey-nut cakes.  They're made with 
> crumbs*, honey, almonds and walnuts, and spices. . .