Daniel Newman
Chair of Arabic Studies at the University of Durham (UK), he specializes in medieval Arab culinary history. His books include The Sultan's Feast. A Fifteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook (2020) and The Exile's Cookbook: Medieval Gastronomic Treasures from al-Andalus and North Africa (2023).
Spanning over six hundred years (9th-15th centuries), the medieval Arab culinary tradition was the richest and most diverse in the world, as evidenced by medieval cookbooks which contain close to 4,500 recipes from across the Islamic world - from Muslim-controlled Spain (known as al-Andalus in Arabic), to North Africa, Egypt, Syria and Iraq.
The huge body of culinary literature is all the more extraordinary since it was only preceded by one Roman cookery book from the 4th century, and a handful of recipes from ancient Mesopotamia. While there is evidence of a gastronomic culture elsewhere, such as ancient Greece, no recipe collections have survived.
The mobility of ingredients in the medieval Arab world was the result of the expansion of the Islamic world and the concomitant growth in trade routes spanning the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road. Arab merchants acted as intermediaries, bringing exotic spices and fruits from East Asia and introducing them to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. From within the Muslim empire, pomegranates, rice, and roses arrived from Persia; saffron and olive oil from North Africa; melons from Samarkand; pistachios, quince and leeks from Syria. Cinnamon, cassia, nutmeg, and cloves were sourced from India, sandalwood and camphor from Vietnam, and musk and silk from China.
From sikbaj to ceviche
After the fall of the Sasanian empire (the last Persian imperial dynasty) in the 7th century CE, the Arab Muslim conquerors adopted some of its courtly etiquette, including the sophisticated cuisine - both ingredients and dishes, most notably the sweet-and-sour stews. One of the most popular dishes from the 8th century onwards was called sikbaj (a Persian word meaning "vinegar stew"), which is no longer part of the modern Arab culinary repertoire but has survived in the Spanish escabeche and travelled to Latin American through the Spanish colonial Empire (16th century onwards) and re-emerged as ceviche. Early Abbasid cuisine (9th century) mediated another Persian dish, called lakhsha, which may well lay claim to being the oldest pasta recipe as it requires cooking dough in a broth.
The Berber speciality couscous spread from the Muslim West to the Near East by the 13th century
The Turkic and Mongol migrations between the 11th and 14th centuries introduced various dough- and yoghurt-based dishes to Arab cuisines across the region. Examples of how global influences were absorbed and reinterpreted include kumaj, a thick flatbread, or jajaq, a yoghurt dish with herbs, which is the ancestor of the modern Greek tzatziki and the Turkish cacık. From the Muslim West came the Berber speciality couscous, which already spread to the Near East by the 13th century. Its popularity clearly continued to grow over the centuries as a 17th-century Ottoman traveller to Egypt reported that it was one of their staple dishes.
Pool of recipes
Some influences go back much further, as in the case of the most frequently used fermented condiment in medieval Arabic recipes, murri, which was made from rotted cereal or, less frequently, fish, and was a descendant of garum, the fermented fish sauce used in Greco-Roman cuisine. The taste and use of murri are not dissimilar to those of our modern soya sauce.
The literature shows a remarkably stable pool of recipes across the Arab-Muslim world, some of which are still enjoyed today in many Arabic-speaking countries, such as shish barak (meat dumplings in a yoghurt stew), mulukhiyya (jew's mallow stew), samosas, or qatayif (filled crepes). The texts reveal overlapping influences, with dishes appearing in multiple traditions but incorporating regional adaptations. Local preferences and the availability of ingredients explains, for instance, why only Andalusi sources have recipes for rabbits as they were indigenous in the region, but fewer with rice since this was only cultivated in the Valencia area. Naturally, the emergence of regional cuisines also resulted in the creation of new dishes, such as the Andalusi mujabbana, a fried cheese fritter.
Taste for the sweet and savoury
Very early on, Arab culinary ingredients, recipes and techniques spread to Europe through three main routes: Muslim Spain, Sicily (under Muslim rule from the early 9th century until the middle of the 11th), and the Crusades. Ingredients such as sugar, rice, almonds, cinnamon, saffron, ginger, cloves, lemons, and sour oranges were originally introduced by the Arabs.
Their predilection for sweet-and-savoury dishes and the abundant use of spices was copied in European cuisines and was a crucial feature of what has been termed le goût medieval ('the medieval taste'), which was exported at the other end of the world, to Mughal India in the 16th century. The medieval European staple blancmange, a rice pudding with meat, was, actually, the Arabs' muhallabiyya. The present-day blancmange (associated with British cuisine) and muhallabiyya are made without meat, with the closest descendant of the medieval original being the Turkish tavuk göğsü pudding.
Unsurprisingly, the Andalusi culinary tradition left a lasting impact on Spanish cuisine and food terminology. The Spanish meatballs, or albóndigas, get their name from the Arabic word al-bunduqa ("the hazelnut"), in reference to the original size of the meat. With the expansion of the Spanish empire, many of the Arab dishes also travelled to the New World, further undergoing changes, and so the Mexican albóndigas became a meatball soup.
The metamorphosis of murri
Even the fried fish in the quintessentially British classic fish and chips can be traced back to a very similar 13th-century Andalusi recipe for a battered fish coated with flour, breadcrumbs and spices before being fried. And it was even served with a vinegar-based sauce (added with olive oil and murri). Some three centuries later, this method of frying fish was imported into England by Sephardic Jewish immigrants from the Iberian Peninsula.
The quintessentially British fish and chips can be traced back to a very similar 13th-century Andalusi recipe
These are just some of the many examples showing the pivotal role played by the medieval Arab world in shaping gastronomy. Through trade, conquests, and cultural exchanges, Arab cuisine influenced the Mediterranean, European, and South Asian culinary traditions. The use of spices, sugar, and almonds - hallmarks of Arab cooking - remain integral to global cuisine today.
