The Arabn influence on Western European cooking

Abstract

The importance of the spice trade to commercial development in Europe in the later middle ages has long been recognized, although the reasons for the demand for exotic condiments from the East have not been much considered. There seems little evidence to support the idea that spices were used either to mask the taste of rotting or “vulgar” food or as preservatives. There are sources, however, which do provide a basis for the unriddling of the taste for spices. Contained within the recipes of the period is evidence that the style of cooking was adopted from the Arabs, and that the heavy use of spices was but one of a cluster of characteristics of Arab food replicated in Europe. In order to establish the similarities between European and Arabic medieval cookery, a sample of French, Italian, Spanish, Flemish, English, and German texts is drawn upon and compared with the main features of the several Arabic works which have been translated into Spanish, French and English. Underlying the upheaval in the cooking of the élite in Europe from about 1300 was a changed attitude toward eating which was stimulated by the place of food in Moslem theology as represented in depictions of the Garden of Delights, a concept which is explored in its rather wide currency in Europe. I postulate that, intrigued with the sensual pleasures of eating as portrayed in the Garden, Europe began to associate luxurious dining with the food of the Arabs, and thus the passage of what was a strange and alien cuisine was facilitated.