Ingredient history - the Moors in Spain and New World influence

Alhambra, Granada. Photo by Marina Vidor, all rights reserved

It's pretty amazing that before Columbus and company sailed over to the Americas, Europe was without tomatoes, potatoes, corn, squash, several types of beans, chocolate, turkey... the list goes on. I sometimes imagine what it must have been like before those crops started to become cultivated in Europe at the beginning of the 16th century. Food was radically different.

I'm reading Tariq Ali's Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree and he peppers the book with recipes. His novel, part of his Islam Quintet, is the story of a Muslim family trying to understand how to survive after the fall of Granada. The year is 1500, just seven years after Columbus returned from his first voyage to the Americas. It's a good read, but descriptions of food had me a bit puzzled at times. Some sound totally authentic. He describes the family cook, a dwarf, concocting some glorious recipes, but a few times New World crops appear. Maybe we could get away with including tomatoes and corn, but potatoes were from South America and not brought back until the second half of the 16th century. It made me wonder how quickly these foods became widely cultivated.

The recipe that most had me scratching my head was this one:

Listen carefully all ye eaters of my food. Tonight I have prepared my favourite stew which can only be consumed after the sun has set. In it you will find twenty-five large potatoes, quartered and diced. Twenty turnips, cleaned and sliced. Ten dasheens skinned till they gleam and ten breasts of lamb which add to the sheen. Four spring chickens, drained of all their blood, a potful of yoghurt, herbs and spices, giving it the colour of mud. Add to this mixture a cup of molasses and, wa Allah, it is done. But young master Yazid, one thing you must remember! The meat and vegetables must be fried separately, then brought together in a pan full of water in which the vegetables have been boiled. Let it all bubble slowly while we sing and make merry. When we come to the end of our fun, wa Allah, the stew is done. The rice is ready. The radishes and carrots, chillies and tomatoes, onions and cucumbers all washed and impatiently waiting their turn to join the stew on your silver plates. - p. 174, Tariq Ali, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree.

Chillies are from the Americas, and yes, they could have been used by then. But potatoes, definitely not. I'd be interested to know how much research he did into food and cuisine before he wrote the book.

At any rate, these references to food got me really intrigued to know if there is any documentation of recipes from the time of the Moors in Spain. It's a research project I would love to dive into!

The recipe in Tariq Ali's book that sounded the most delicious is described on p. 30:

The old man had been skinning almonds, which lay soaked in a bowl of water, when Zuhayr arrived. Now he began to grind them into a smooth paste, adding a few drops of milk when the mixture became too hard. He looked up and caught the smile. [...] The old man did not reply, but transferred the paste from a stone bowl into a cooking pan containing milk. To this concoction he added some wild honey, cardamoms and a stick of cinnamon. He blew on the embers and let it simmer. Zuhayr watched in silence as his senses were overpowered by the aroma. Then the pan was lifted and the old man stirred it vigorously with a well-seasoned wooden spoon and sprinkled some thinly sliced almonds on the liquid.

Sounds delicious and comforting.

Later on he describes a 'heavenly mixture' (p. 54):

Ama entered with the maize cakes wrapped in cloth to keep them warm. She was followed by the Dwarf, who was carrying a metal container full of bubbling hot milk. Umayma came last with a pot full of raw, brown sugar. [...] Ama was beginning to prepare the heavenly mixture. Her hands were hidden in a large bowl where she was tearing the soft cakes apart. They crumbled easily. She added some fresh butter and carried on softening the mixture with her hands. Then she signalled to Umayma, who came forward and began to pour on the sugar while Ama's wrinkled hands continued to mix the ingredients. Finally the fingers withdrew. Zahra clapped her hands and proffered her bowl. [...] Then the hot milk was poured on and the sweet course was taken. For a moment they were too busy savouring the delights of this simple concoction to thank its author.

I bet they were! But I want to know if corn was really being cultivated that soon after the Columbus voyages. He did bring back maize in 1493, so I guess it's totally possible. It would be interesting to know if there are recipes that back this up.

Veering away from New World foods, I was intrigued by 'dasheens', mentioned in my first excerpt from the book, which are taro. I just read up in Wikipedia about them:

Taro is native to southeast Asia. It is a perennial, tropical plant primarily grown as a root vegetable for its edible starchy corm, and as a leaf vegetable and is considered a staple in African, Oceanic and Asian cultures. It is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants. Colocasia is thought to have originated in the Indo-Malayan region, perhaps in eastern India and Bangladesh, and spread eastward into Southeast Asia, eastern Asia, and the Pacific islands; westward to Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean; and then southward and westward from there into East Africa and West Africa, from whence it spread to the Caribbean and Americas. 

Taro was consumed by the early Romans in much the same way the potato is today. They called this root vegetable colocasia. The Roman cook book Apicius mentions several methods for preparing taro including boiling, preparation with sauces and cooking with meat or fowl, After the fall of the Roman Empire, the use of taro dwindled in Europe. This was largely due to the decline of trade and commerce, from Egypt, previously controlled by Rome. It has remained popular in the Canary Islands.

P.S. A fun fact: Peppers (Capsicum), tomatoes and potatoes are all part of the Nightshade family (Solanaceae), all native to the Americas, and they all have really similar flowers. Deadly nightshade (belladonna), tomatillo, tobacco, Cape gooseberry, eggplant and petunias are all Solanaceae. Strange that eggplant, a native of India, is included, but so it is.