Flavours of the Arab Golden Age – EP 2: Spain and North Africa
A historian and a chef go on a culinary journey through history to discover the roots of Arab cuisine and its influence on our food today.
Kotoz Ahmed is a researcher and Fadi Kattan is a Palestinian chef. In this second episode, they discover sweets in the Spanish city of Cordoba, a legacy of Muslim Spain.
After the expulsions of 1492, some Muslims remained and preserved their Andalusian cuisine – like bunuelos, a kind of Spanish fritter. Kotoz cooks a similar sweet using a 13th century Arabic manuscript, The Best of Delectable Food of al-Andalus.
Kotoz and Fadi then turn to Morocco where they discover a dish that Jews and Muslims shared together on last day of Passover. They also find a 14th century manuscript called Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table in the library in Gotha in Germany. It sheds light on Egyptian culinary heritage through historic handwritten works during the Mamluk era.
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