MUSLIM SPAIN AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET

We’ve all heard of the Mediterranean Diet, but what exactly is it and what has it got to do with Muslim Spain? In a world concerned with increasing obesity in people of all ages, and the subsequent health issues that follow, more and more attention has turned to the need for improving our life styles, particularly our diet. Probably one of the most popular, and certainly the easiest of the numerous diets on offer, is the Mediterranean Diet, so called because it is the traditional combination of foodstuffs that the people living in Mediterranean countries have followed for centuries. This healthy and wholesome way of eating consists of a great number of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and pulses, together with fresh fish and seafood, all items that we can see on the supermarket shelves today no matter where we live. But did you know that much of this diet we owe to the Muslims who occupied Spain from the 8th until 15th centuries. The Christians may have expelled the last of the Moors in 1492 but they didn’t get rid of the legacy that they left in terms of cuisine, which has over the centuries spread across all of Europe.

Many vegetables and fruits that we now consider to be native to Spain were in fact introduced by the Muslim conquerors, most of which they in turn brought from India, Africa, Persia and the Spice Islands. The climate of the Mediterranean was perfect for growing these crops, and masters of irrigation that they were, the Moors soon cultivated the land and planted large areas of wheat and rice. They also grew spinach, eggplants, artichokes, chard, radishes, celery, carrots and even asparagus, which up until then had been discarded as a weed.

The Moors introduced sugar to Europe for the first time by bringing sugarcane from the Nile valley. It grew particularly well along the Mediterranean coast and especially in the Málaga area  of al-Andalus. Such was the liking for sweet foods that it became very popular in cakes, for making candied fruit and to sweeten fruit drinks, to preserve whole fruits and to make jams. One of the desserts that was as much in favour then as it is today, was churros, made from a doughnut type batter and deep-fried in oil, although in those days they preferred to cook it in boiling honey.

10th century Baghdad was the culinary centre of the age, where foods from Syria, Persia, India and Central Asia mingled. Much as today, food became not just a necessity, but a fashion which was  soon picked up by the elite Muslim families. Oddly enough it was one man in particular who shaped our current way of eating. His name was Abu al-Hasan and he was born in Baghdad in 789 AD. He was a court musician and became known as Ziryab (the Blackbird) because of the beautiful music he both played and sang. But Ziryab wasn’t just a musician, he was the man who brought new ideas about fashion and food to al-Andalus. When he was in his early thirties he arrived in al-Andalus and presented himself at the court of Abd al-Rahman II. From then on, things changed. Up until his arrival in Spain, eating was a very basic affair. Ziryab introduced a degree of sophistication into mealtimes. Tables were fitted with tooled leather coverings instead of being bare wood; there was a range of cutlery to use and crystal glasses. Instead of piling all the food onto a single plate, regardless of what it was, he suggested it should be served in a number of separate courses: soup to start, followed by fish or meat with vegetables, then cheese and fruit or nuts, just as we know it today. His ideas spread first from the royal courts to the nobility and then down to the common folk, then they spread out across Europe. In Córdoba they still prepare a dish called ziriabí made of roasted and salted broad beans, which is called after him. Another dish that he was known for, is Taqliyat Ziryab, made of meatballs and small pieces of dough fried in coriander oil. And in Zaragoza apparently, they still serve a dish of walnuts and honey that he made popular.

For the Moors, vegetables were important ingredients in any meal and were cooked just as we do today as part of the dish, rather than eaten raw or served as an accompaniment. Pulses, very high on the list of foods in the Mediterranean diet, were cooked in great quantities and added to spicy stews. Chickpeas, lentils and beans were a great source of protein and were more readily available and of course, cheaper than meat.

With the mild Mediterranean climate to help them, the Moors cultivated cherries, apples, pomegranates, bananas, figs, grapes, lemons and oranges. They used the grapes to make wine, vinegar to flavour their food, and dried them as raisins to add to their cooking. They also produced olive oil for cooking.

Flavouring was important to the Moors and they introduced many spices and herbs into al-Andalus: cinnamon, cardamon, coriander, cumin, mint, ginger, saffron, pepper, nutmeg and many others, all originating from India and Persia.

Nuts, such as almonds and hazel nuts were often used in Moorish cuisine. Almonds, in particular grew in great abundance in al-Andalus and were used to make sweet pastries and marzipan, or ground into a smooth cream to make ajo blanco and Salmorejo.  Both of these savoury soups we still enjoy today. The Moors also made a paste called almori from salt, honey, raisins, pine nuts, almonds, hazel nuts and flour, which they pounded together, moulded into a flat piece and then left to harden. They would break off a piece of this hard paste, soak it in water until it had softened and then add it to whichever dish they were cooking. Instant goodness and more healthy than our modern stock cubes.

Durum wheat, which is harder than other wheat and contains less moisture, is ideal for making various types of pasta because it can be rolled and shaped more easily. It was brought from central Asia by the Moors and introduced into Sicily and al-Andalus as early as the 9th century. The pasta produced featured in recipe books dating back to the 13th century.

According to the owner of one well-known restaurant in Córdoba, the preparation of sweet and sour stuffed dishes stretches back to Moorish Spain, as does the practice of adding dried fruit and nuts to meat dishes. He proudly admits that his chef still prepares traditional al-Andalus recipes that date back eight hundred years or more. 

If you are interested you can read more about these Andalusian recipes in an anonymous 13th century cookbook entitled LA COCINA HISPANO-MAGREBÍ DURANTE LA ÉPOCA ALMOHADE.

Madinat al Zahra

When I first heard about the ruins of Madinat al-Zahra, I was intrigued by the idea that a palace-city of such magnificence should have lasted for such a short time.  Civilisations come and go, as any reader of history knows but for it to last no more than 75 years seemed a tragedy.  It was the summer of 2001. I picked up a leaflet about an exhibition that was to be held in the museum at Madinat al-Zahra, just outside Córdoba.  It was entitled The Splendour of the Cordovan Umayyads.  I remembered my childhood love of Tales of the Arabian Nights and I was hooked.  So we drove across from Málaga, on a blistering hot day to see what it was all about.  

I have been back many times since and the place holds a fascination for me; so much so that it inspired me to write a novel.  I decided to tell the story of the city through a family that lived there; I had the bare bones of my novel before me, in the stone walls and paved paths, in the narrow passages ways, the ornate gardens, the artefacts in the museum.  All I needed to do was to make the city come alive through my characters.  I've called the novel The Shining City because 'Madinat' (or medina) is the word for town and 'Zahra' means shining or brilliant.  It's said that the caliph called the city al-Zahra because, at the time it was being built, he was in love with a slave girl called Zahra.  It could be true; there are certainly written references to a concubine of that name, but I think 'Zahra' referred to the magnificence of the city itself.  As the principle character in my book, Omar, tells his nephew:

‘It means shining, glistening, brilliant.  Possibly his concubine glittered and shone with all the jewels and beautiful silks he showered upon her but then so did the city.  It was indeed the Shining City.  When visitors entered through the Grand Portico, passing beneath its enormous, red and white arches, when they climbed the ramped streets that were paved with blocks of dark mountain stone, passing the lines of uniformed guards in their scarlet jackets and the richly robed civil servants that flanked their way, when they reached the royal residence and saw the golden inlay on the ceilings, the marble pillars, the richly woven rugs scattered across the floors and the brilliant silk tapestries, when they saw the moving tank of mercury in the great reception pavilion that caught the sunlight and dazzled all who beheld it, then they indeed knew that they were in the Shining City.’

Of course today, looking at the ruined paths, the piles of broken tiles, the reconstructed arches and pillars, we need to use our imagination to see it as it once was.

The construction of the city of Madinat al-Zahra was begun in the year 939 AD by  Abd al-Rahman III and took forty years to complete.  Having declared himself the caliph of al-Andalus in 929 AD and with the country more or less at peace he wanted to follow in the tradition of previous caliphs and build himself a palace-city, grander than anything that had been built before.  The site he chose was eight kilometres to the west of Córdoba, in present day Andalusia and measured one and a half kilometres by almost a kilometre.  It was sheltered from the north winds by the mountains behind it and had an excellent vantage point from which to see who was approaching the city.  It was well supplied with water from an old Roman aqueduct and surrounded by rich farming land.  It had good roads to communicate with Córdoba and there was even a stone quarry close by.

The caliph left much of the responsibility for the construction of the city to his son al-Hakam, who continued work on it after his father's death.  One of the most curious questions about Madinat al-Zahra is why, despite its importance as the capital of the Umayyad dynasty in al-Andalus, this magnificent city endured no more than seventy-five years.  When al-Hakam died in 976 AD the city was thriving; all the most important people in the land lived there.  The army, the Mint, the law courts, the government and the caliph were there; the city boasted public baths, universities, libraries, workshops and ceremonial reception halls to receive the caliph's visitors.  But al-Hakam's heir was a boy of eleven-years old.  The new boy-caliph was too young to rule, so a regent was appointed, the Prime Minister, al-Mansor, an ambitious and ruthless man.  Gradually the Prime Minister moved the whole court, the Mint, the army and all the administrative functions back to Córdoba, leaving the boy caliph in Madinat al-Zahra, ruling over an empty shell.  Once the seat of power had been removed from Madinat al-Zahra, the city went into decline.  The wealthy citizens left, quickly followed by the artisans, builders, merchants and local businessmen.  Its beautiful buildings were looted and stripped of their treasures and the buildings were destroyed to provide materials for other uses.  Today you can find artefacts from the city in Málaga, Granada, and elsewhere.  Marble pillars that once graced the caliph's palace now support the roofs of houses in Córdoba.  Ashlars that were part of the city's walls have been used to build cow sheds

Excavation of the site began in 1911 by Riocardo Velázquez Bosco, the curator of the mosque in Córdoba.  The work was slow and hampered by the fact that the ruins were on private property.  Landowners were not keen to co-operate and eventually the State had to purchase the land before the excavations could begin.  The work progressed slowly but gradually over the years a number of government acts were passed which resulted in the site being designated as an Asset of Cultural Interest and in 1998 a Special Protection Plan was drawn up to give full weight to the importance of the ruins.  Today the site is open to the public and has an excellent visitor centre and museum. I can recommend a visit.

Having completed writing The Shining City, I then went on to write The Eye of the Falcon and The Ring of Flames, covering the period that is known as The Golden Age of Moorish Spain. The three books form the al-Andalus trilogy and are available as ebooks from Amazon and in paperback from bookshops, both local and online.

Daughters of Spain

I was delighted when Ybernia SL approached me to say they would like to publish a new edition of my book Daughters of Spain, a collection of first-hand interviews with a variety of Spanish women. It was the first book I ever published, back in 2009. Although in actual fact the idea behind the book was conceived twenty years earlier, in 1989, when I first came to Málaga. At that time, a democratic Spain had only been in existence for fourteen years, and my expectations of what life was like for the women of Spain was quite different from what I actually experienced when I arrived there. In that short space of time women’s lives had changed so much that they were not much different from those of women in Britain in the twentieth century. I had joined a Spanish language school which was owned and run by two young women, one of whom was divorced and both were financially independent of their families. That alone would have inspired me to look further into the changes that had taken place since the death of Franco, but there were other reasons which stemmed from further back in my own past.

I had worked in education all my life, but during the 1970s and 80s I found myself constantly coming up against the ‘Glass Ceiling’, as it was referred to at the time. Despite having a long list of qualifications and experience, the top jobs were always going to the men I was competing against. But that wasn’t all; I soon realised that being a woman could also mean that I would not necessarily be treated as an equal even in my social life. I had been playing golf since I was in my early twenties, but by the end of the 1980s there were still golf clubs in existence where women were not allowed to enter the club house through the front door and were not allowed to play at weekends (the assumption there being that they had all week to play golf!) So I suppose that is why I have been a campaigner for women’s equality for most of my life, and as such was keen to see what had changed for the women of Spain and how they felt about it.

Another factor which lay behind my interest in interviewing these women was that I have always been fascinated by Spain, not just its culture but also in its politics. When I was a teenager my English teacher introduced me to the works of Ernest Hemingway, including For Whom the Bell Tolls, where the main protagonist goes to Spain to fight on the side of the Republican forces. This, and the fact that my father had reportedly gone to Spain to join the International Brigade for a brief period in 1938, gave rise to an interest in the Spanish Civil War on my part. He never spoke to me about it, just as he didn’t speak about his experiences in World War II. 

Many of the women I interviewed had lived through the civil war and were happy to tell me about their experiences and those of their families. One thing that became clear after talking to them was that not all of them looked back on their lives with regret. The restrictions were there for all the women, not being allowed to have a bank account, no chance of divorce from an abusive husband, no abortion, restricted education and being under the strict control of both State and Church. However, while some women had truly terrible stories to relate, others remembered their childhood and the civil war with equanimity. For some the civil war barely touched their lives whilst for others it was a devastating part of them.

FLAMENCO

Traditionally, flamenco has always been associated with Spain and the Roma or gypsy way of life, but in fact there was a similar culture of music and dance in southern Spain a thousand years before the gypsies arrived in Andalusia. The city of Cádiz, known as Gades during the the time of the Phoenicians and the later Roman occupation of the country, was famous for its female dancers who were renowned all across the Mediterranean world for their beauty and sensual dancing. The dancers were often accompanied by musicians and a singer, just as they are today. The ancient works of many Roman writers and historians reveal how popular the Gaditanae, as the women were called, were at the time, and we actually know the name of one of those dancers; she was called Telethusa and she lived in Gades during the first century. And the reason we know about her is due to the poems of the Roman poet, Marcus Valerias Martialis. Apparently he saw her dancing in the market place when he visited Gades and is said to have become infatuated with her, eventually making her his mistress. He was not the only one to write about these sensuous dancers; men, such as the poets Lord Byron and Federico Lorca, the author Cervantes and the historian Richard Ford also wrote about Cádiz and its fascinating Gaditanae.

They describe Telethusa as dancing with her arms above her head, playing the castanets and moving her body to a rhythmic beat. This provocative Oriental style dance was a precursor to flamenco as we see it today. 

But the roots of flamenco are more complicated than that. Between the ninth and fourteenth century the Andalusian gypsies, or gitanos as they are known in Spain, migrated to the Iberian peninsula from north-west India. They brought their own culture of Hindu dance and song and with it the instruments that we associate with flamenco dancing: castanets, tambourines, bells and drums. In Andalusia they encountered Christians, Sephardic Jews and Moors, whose cultures were already well established in the land, and over the next five hundred years these cultural influences mingled with their own music. The Moors had brought many musical instruments to Andalusia, including the guitar which Zirab, a Moorish musician, brought from Baghdad in the 9th century. The guitar is the main form of accompaniment for both flamenco song and dance. This inter-mingling of the cultures is what has created flamenco.

There are two distinct parts to flamenco, the song and the dance, and it is the former which sets the character of the performance because it tells the story of the everyday life of the gitanos. The words of the song are then interpreted by the dancer. There are three types of song. Cante Jondo, (deep song) is very emotional and tells of death, despair and longing; it is believed to be the oldest type of cante or song. Then there is the light-hearted Cante Chico (small song) which tells of love and romance, life in the countryside, friendships and fiestas. It is technically a more complicated form of song but far less emotional, and full of humour. Then there is a third style which is a mix of the two and sometimes includes other styles of Spanish folk songs as well, such as the verdiales of the mountain villages. This is called Cante Intermedio. Most of these songs can be traced back many years. Some of them are only sung on certain occasions and it can bring bad luck if they are sung at the wrong time. You can only sing alboreás, for example, at weddings.

For me the dance is the most spectacular part of flamenco, but of course it would mean so much more to the spectator if they understood the words being sung because the dancer is interpreting them with the movements of her body. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, flamenco songs have been accompanied by the guitar and someone beating time with a small drum or a wooden stick against the ground. While the singer sings stories of love or death, the dancer begins to dance. If the performer is woman, she is dressed in an elaborate long dress, usually with lots of ruffles. Sometimes she wears a gaily decorated shawl which she uses as part of the dance, twirling it through the air or around her body. Or she plays the castanets, their clicking blending with the music and accentuating the beat. She dances sensuously, her arms and hands constantly twisting and turning, in a manner not dissimilar to a classical Hindu dancer, her feet tap and stamp in her high-heeled shoes, their metal caps beating out the rhythm of the music. The male dancer has a more upright style, his back is held erect and his arms and hands mirror those of his partner. When he dances alone his feet do most of the work, performing an intricate style of tap dancing that creates a music of its own. Men dancing in this manner where most of the movement comes from the legs and feet is a style of dance that goes back many years and can be seen in places as far apart as Ireland, the United States and West Africa.

The Golden Age of flamenco was from the end of the eighteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century. At first it was an outdoor event centred around the family, but in 1842 the first café cantante was opened in Seville. After that many other indoor performances were started in neighbouring cities, but the emphasis was more on the musicians and the dancers; the singer was no longer so important. Many thought that this was downgrading flamenco and a movement was made by influential people such as Federico Lorca and the composer Manuel de Falla to restore flamenco to its pure form. To do this they organised a competition for Primitive Andalusian Cante and succeeded in preventing any further debasement to the original flamenco. That doesn't mean that the development of flamenco has stood still; many contemporary composers and performers are bringing it to a modern and international audience. And nowadays the Spanish regard flamenco as the music of Spain not just Andalusia.

Below are a couple of books to read if you want to learn more about the origins of flamenco and gypsy culture in Spain: 

"White Wall of Spain: the mysteries of Andalusian culture" by Allen Josephs 

"Andalusia: Between dream and reality" by Tony Bryant.

How living in Spain influenced my writing.

There are two questions I am often asked; one is whether living in Spain has influenced my writing and the other is, how much of my own life is in my stories. I will attempt to answer both those questions in this blog.

In fact when I moved to southern Spain in 1998 it was to be near my daughter who had decided to move to Malaga when she finished college. What had initially been intended as a brief stay on my part, had turned into becoming my home from then on.  At that time I knew very little about the country or its history, but I soon became captivated by both. My two great loves are literature and history, and here I found I could indulge both of these passions.

The first historical novel I wrote was related to recent Spanish history and it evolved from a collection of interviews I made with Spanish women of different ages, where I learnt about their lives during the Spanish Civil War and afterwards. These interviews gave me the inspiration to write a love story set in Málaga during that civil war (Spanish Lavender) and also a novel entitled The House on the Beach which was about two girls struggling against the post-war restrictions imposed by both the State and the Church during the dictatorship of Franco. Neither of which I could have done adequately if I had not been living here. A lot of my writing looks at social class and inequality, particularly the position of women in Spain, but there is another aspect of Spanish history that intrigues me as well, the Muslim—or Moorish as it was called at the time—occupation of Spain. 

Anyone visiting the autonomous community of Andalusia in the south of Spain, cannot help but come across reminders of the Muslim inhabitants of the land they occupied for almost 800 years, be it its magnificent buildings such as the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque in Córdoba, or the traditional designs of colourful wall tiles, Arabic archways, the Arabic words that are part of everyday use, irrigation systems; the land is full of reminders of what the Muslims left behind.

It was in 2000 that I first became fascinated by these Muslim conquerors and their influence on Spain and its culture. I had visited an exhibition of Moorish art in the ruined city of Madinat-al-Zahra, near Córdoba and what I learned there inspireded me to write a historical novel telling the story of how the caliph Abd al Rahman III had built the city in the 10th century as a symbol to the world of his wealth and power. This was the Golden Age of Moorish Spain and at the time al-Andalus was renowned throughout the civilised world for its learning and culture. Once the caliph died, it was not many years before the city fell into disrepair and was forgotten. The more I read about the history of the period, the more surprised I became to learn just how much Spain and the rest of the western world owed to the Muslims of the 10th century and the more I wanted to write about it and share it with others. So what was originally going to be a single historical novel, The Shining City, turned into three novels, with The Eye of the Falcon and The Ring of Flames completing The al-Andalus trilogy.  

The demise of Córdoba, after a terrible prolonged siege and the deaths of many citizens, led to what had once been the most cultured and wealthy city in al-Andalus being abandoned and the royal court being transferred to Málaga. As a resident of Málaga, I felt duty bound to continue my research into Muslim Spain and wrote a second trilogy set in Málaga during the succeeding century. I called this one The City of Dreams Trilogy because my characters, both real and fictitious, were moving there to fulfil their dreams and escape from war-torn Córdoba.

So far, I haven’t explained how much of my own life lies in my stories. The answer is both nothing and everything. I expect I am no different from many other writers, in that I am by nature, an observant person. A writer needs to notice details, mannerisms, behaviours, colours. As we go through life we all absorb ideas, events, emotions that are in some small way unique to us, without even realising it. For a writer this is like having a large compendium of characters, places, conversations and events that you can dip into at any time. And that is exactly what I do. When writing historical fiction for example, it is important to create a balance between the characters that you have researched and know existed and those that you have invented. This is when a writer relies on their personal compendium of experiences to bring their fictitious characters to life, while not turning them into a photofit of someone you already know. They are like prompts for the writer, an extra cherry in the pie, a drop more icing on the cake. They are a mosaic of details that have been unconsciously collected during my life and they are available when I need them.

They say that a writer should write about what they know and to a certain extent I agree with that. Of course in the realms of story telling, be it historical fiction or science fiction, we must sometimes cut loose from what we know to be certain and true facts, and let our imaginations take over. The real joy of writing fiction is that the writer can create their own world, with characters that do not really exist, but whom the reader may feel that they recognise and often can empathise with them.

It’s probably easier to see how Spain has influenced my historical fiction, but its influence is also very evident in some of my contemporary works as well. Recently, when I set about creating my female private detective, I decided to set the action in the centre of Málaga because that is somewhere I know well and can readily bring it to mind while I am writing. It’s what all writers do. If you are a fan of the Rebus detective series, you will by now be fairly familiar with Edinburgh, a city that the author Ian Rankin obviously knows very well. Centuries ago, Thomas Hardy lived and wrote in Dorset and his books are set in Wessex, a place he knew and loved well, and which his readers too have grown to recognise.

By and large, writers are eclectic people, who use a mix of their personal store of experiences and creative skills to enhance what they are writing and bring their readers into their world to share them.