Download PDF | Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī, Nawal Nasrallah (Translatot) - Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib_ A Cookbook by Thirteenth-Century Andalusi Scholar Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī (1227–1293) English Translation with Introduction and Glossary, Brill 2021.
915 Pages
Preface
The sophisticated cuisine that developed in the Iberian Peninsula when it was under Muslim rule is in full view in the thirteenth-century cookbook Fiḍālat al-khiwān fī ṭayyibāt al-ṭaʿām wa-l-alwān by the Andalusi scholar Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī. With its 475 delectable recipes that are masterfully structured and explained, it is indeed the middle jewel in the ‘unique necklace’ of medieval Arabic cookery books that survived from the eastern and western regions of the Arabo-Muslim world. Published for the first time in English, this edition presents al-Tujībī’s complete text, based not only on the partial Berlin and Madrid manuscripts but also on a newly discovered, complete manuscript at the British Library.
I unexpectedly came across this new manuscript while working on the translation of this text. I was asked by the British Library to identify a very long culinary fragment in an anonymous pharmaceutical compendium of Maghribi origin (more on this in the introduction). To my delight it turned out to be none other than alTujībī’s cookbook, and a complete copy at that, except for a missing folio at the beginning and another one at the end, material already provided by the two incomplete manuscripts of the book.
This new discovery is now available for the first time in print format. Born into an affluent and well-established Andalusi family in Murcia in alAndalus, al-Tujībī had to flee the country due to the rapid decline of Muslim rule in al-Andalus and settle in North Africa, in Tunis, where he established himself as a revered scholar. His biographers mention works he authored, variously dealing with historical, cultural, and literary matters; but not a single word on his cookbook Fiḍālat al-khiwān or even a by-the-way mention of his gourmandise. Ironically, of all his works it was his cookbook that survived. It is indeed instructive, illustrating how material culture, even when it is not fully acknowledged, is present and influential in shaping cultural heritage. Based on circumstantial and internal evidence, al-Tujībī’s primary motive for writing his cookbook was most likely his desire to preserve the Andalusi cuisine he knew quite well from his years growing up in Murcia, where he led a life of luxury.
A cuisine he cherished was in danger of being forgotten or lost due to multitudes of his countrymen fleeing al-Andalus just as he had. Given his literary interests, he was well aware of the value of a well-written cookbook, not only as a practical guide for cooking but also as a source for an enjoyable reading experience outside the kitchen, and in this he was indeed ahead of his time.
This is a key resource on medieval material culture in the western region of the Arabo-Muslim world and on the Arab culinary heritage in Iberia. It is only in this cookbook that we find recipes for cooking the salt-cured tuna called mushammaʿ that is now the Spanish delicacy mojama. The book’s recipes function as prototypes for dishes that later metamorphosed but kept their Arabic origin; for instance, the grand Ṣinhājī, named after one of the largest Amazigh tribes in North Africa, became the festive Spanish hodge-podge stew called olla podrida, or jūdhāba, the savory-sweet chicken pie that was the precursor of the Moroccan basṭīla.
It is also a testimony to the credibility of the diverse foodrelated anecdotes we encounter in Andalusi records, such as the reference to a lavish feast arranged by a dignitary that offered nothing but chicken dishes al-Tujībī’s chicken chapter has 49 recipes, aside from many others interspersed in other parts of the book—or Ibn Khaldūn’s comment on the diet of the Andalusi and Maghrebi urbanites as mostly mutton and chicken—the mutton chapter contains no less than 46 recipes.
In my concern for producing an accurate translation of al-Tujībī’s cookbook, I had to work with the three manuscripts available to us in addition to the edited Arabic text. When identifying ingredients, the medieval Arabic sources on botany, dietetics, agronomy, and horticulture, mostly hailing from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib, were indispensable.
The aim of the introduction and glossary, for which material was extensively explored, and they are illustrated throughout with miniatures and period artifacts, is to introduce readers to the wonders of cooking and foodways in alAndalus and al-Maghrib. The 24 modernized recipes will give readers a taste of the cuisine and may lead to further experimentations with the recipes. Understandably, not everyone will want to try al-Tujībī’s recipe for boiling and frying locusts or preparing the head of the sacrificial sheep for a tharīd dish by banging its nostrils“so that the maggots that bred inside the nose fall out,” as al Tujībī meticulously details, but there are hundreds of other recipes waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.
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