The 8th century introduction, via the Middle East, of new foods into the diet of the Islamic West (the al-Andalus and the Maghrib) represents an important point of passage, which also contributed to the technical and agricultural transformations that al-Andalus witnessed between the 9th and 11th centuries. These changes enabled foodstuffs of different origins to be planted and cultivated on a large scale and ever since consumed by both the elites and the masses.

The sea routes provided great support for this culinary expansion, also bringing a great variety of fruits, seasonings, spices and other foodstuffs originating in Sicily, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia Minor.

In addition to imports, another factor of great importance for this mixed, acculturated and synthesising reality and identity prevailing  in the medieval Islamic West, and also extending to the table, stemmed from the social coexistence between Jews, Muslims and Christians on the medieval Iberian Peninsula, and which gave shape to a privileged space of cultural exchanges and transactions, also in the kitchen and on the plate, between cultures with distinct values.

About the author:
António Rei has a PhD in Cultural History and Medieval Mentalities (FCSH – Nova University, 2007) and is a contracted post-doc researcher at IEM / NOVA FCSH. A Medievalist and Arabist, since 2015 he has been working on the study Food and Healing in the Gharb al-Andalus in the Hispano-Arab agro-botanical treatises (10th – 13th centuries). He was also a JNICT / FCT Grant Holder (1996-2019), researcher at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies – Facultad de Filología, Complutense University of Madrid, (2008-2010), at the Archaeological Camp of Mértola (2011-2013), at the Escuela de Estudios Árabes (CSIC), Granada (2015-2017) and at the DIAITA Project (Coimbra Univ.); NOVA University; UFRJ; UECamp), since March 2015. He has held teaching positions at NOVA University: (2011-2012), UALG (2002- 2009) and at Univ. of Évora / Luís de Molina Foundation (2000-07) and among his publications are more than a hundred titles, including books, conferences and scientific articles in leading international and national journals in the thematic areas that he has studied.