An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook

Marzipan

I made this for a recipe that I’ll be posting in the next two weeks, but I thought it should have it’s own post. I brought some of it for the Montengarde Culinary Group meeting yesterday.

Modern Marzipan uses a 5:3 ratio of blanched ground almonds to sugar then adding rosewater until the texture is right (between one and two parts). However An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook (13th century Spanish), Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin (16th century German), and Delights for Ladies (16th century English) use a 1:1 ratio of almonds to sugar so I’ll be using the same. You can make this in your mortar but this time I’m using my kitchen servant, aka food processor, to speed things up.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Syrup of Pomegranates

34.

And a third and final recipe inspired by this month’s Montengarde Culinary Group’s meeting.

While looking for a “light” recipe or one that made me think of warmer climates I decided on Andalusia. Southern Spain sounded warm to me and during the time period it would have been very exotic as well, being one of the main connecting points for Muslim Africa and Christian Europe.

This recipe was chosen mostly for my son who has decided that he loves pomegranates (pomegranate candy as he calls it).

Today’s recipe is from An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century as translated by Charles Perry. The cookbook is originally known as Kitab al-Tabeekh fi ‘l-Maghrib wa ‘l-Andalus fi ‘Asr al-Muwahhidin or Cookbook of Al-Maghrib and Andalusia in the era of Almohads (Writing Food History: A Global Perspective)

Syrup of Pomegranates

Take a ratl of sour pomegranates and another of sweet pomegranates, and add their juice to two ratls of sugar, cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup, and keep until needed. Its benefits: it is useful for fevers, and cuts the thirst, it benefits bilious fevers and lightens the body gently.

It’s a fairly straightforward recipe. A few points need to be added though.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago