[Sca-cooks] Andalusia = Middle East?

[David Friedman]

>Kiri said:
><<< I also make sure that all of the dishes I serve at our local 
>Middle Eastern
>event are documented as being period.  I have even attempted in past years
>to concentrate on specific areas of the Middle East...last year, we did
>Andalusia. >>>
>
>Okay, I'm confused.
>
>Are you lumping Andalusia in as part of the Middle East? I thought 
>it was in Spain. That doesn't seem very close. But I think I've 
>heard others lump them together also.
>
>Would you put Persian information in "Middle East"?  In part, I'm 
>trying to figure out what information for the Florilegium goes into 
>the Middle East files. Once I get enough info on a specific country 
>or region it usually gets its own file, but until that time I tend 
>to use some more general files.

I tend to use "Islamic" as a way of avoiding the problem. From a 
cultural and culinary standpoint, al-Andalus and Persia belong with 
Syria, Arabia, etc. Lots of the period middle eastern recipes have 
names derived from Persian, and there's a good deal of similarity 
between the Andalusian and middle-eastern recipe collections.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com