The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook dates from the 13th century and is so called because the author unknown. The most available edition is translated into English from the original Arabic by Charles Perry, with additional notes by various SCAdians (commenting mostly on Miranda's sometimes faulty Spanish translation). It is also available in hard copy in the Cookbook Collection compiled by Duke Cariadoc and Elizabeth Cook.

I decided to count all the spices, herbs, and other seasonings and flavorings, to see which were used, to get some idea of the frequency of use, and what seasonings were used in combination. This took some time, and i have a lacuna here and there. Nonetheless, below are the basics, as they currently stand. I may put together information on spice combinations at a later date.

In looking through the book, it appears that the recipes had been culled from a number of other sources, based on the wording of recipes in different sections. It is possible that some of this could be due to the translator, but i suspect this is not the case. Thus the recipes in different chapters not only are worded differently but stress different seasonings.

There were 345 recipes in the first 8 chapters. I skipped the sweets and beverages because counting their seasonings would skew the count - having so much more sweetening, and a particular subset of spices.

What I Counted
Spices	Herbs
Roses	Allia
Sweetening Agents	Souring Agents
Nuts & Seeds	Other

I was surprised that the only sweeteners in the Andalusian cookbook were sugar and honey and that they were used in almost equal amounts. In al-Baghdadi there is a wider range of sweeteners and sugar is used three times as often as honey. Yet sugar cane was being grown and refined in al-Andalus.

There was also a much more limited range of souring agents in the Andalusian cookbook, primarily vinegar, in 119 of 129 recipes, with 5 others in only a total of 10 recipes; whereas there were 11 in 34 al-Baghdadi recipes, 41% vinegar, 22% lemon juice, 13% sumac, 7% pomegranate juice, and six others in 14 recipes. Given the amount of wine grown and drunk in the area even in Muslim times, this would have been wine vinegar. While i am not certain if it would have been red or white, an essay on food within the Andalusian cookbook mentions white vinegar made of sweet grapes, so i assume white wine vinegar would be most suitable.

There is a wider range of nuts in the Andalusian than in al-Baghdadi. While almonds dominate in both cuisines, in al-Andalus the second most commonly used are pine nuts, which do not appear in al-Baghdadi at all. Chestnuts show up in a few Andalusian recipes, and the safflower and indigo colored pistachios are unique.

I was surprised that citrus products, other than citron leave, were so little used, especially when compared to al-Baghdadi. I suspect that either oranges and lemons were not yet well established in al-Andalus at the time this book was written, or that authors of the cookbooks from which the recipes were taken had little or no access to citrus fruits.

Among the Andalusian herbs are rue, lavender, and basil, which don't appear in al-Baghdadi at all, and a great deal more fennel. Surprisingly, galangal shows up in al-Andalus, whereas it is not mentioned in al-Baghdadi - i say surprisingly, because it was imported from Southeast Asia and i wonder why to al-Andalus and not to Mesopotamia.

Ultimately, most of the major spices other than pepper and cinnamon were locally grown. These include coriander, saffron, cumin, caraway, and mustard.

Cinnamon: There are two kinds of cinnamon. True or Ceylon cinnamon comes in thin, light brown, multiply curled quills, amazingly fragrant and complexly flavored. Cassia or Chinese cinnamon is what most Americans think is cinnamon, as it is what is in the cans and jars in supermarkets. It has thick, dark brown, singly curled quills with a simpler and coarser flavor than Ceylon cinnamon.

And there are two words for cinnamon in Arabic, dar sini, and qurfi / qirfa. In reading Arabic language and books about spices it seems that the terms are often used interchangeably. Dar sini means Chinese wood, referring to Chinese cinnamon, but i have found the term also applied to Ceylon cinnamon. And I have found the term qurfi / qirfa is also applied to both kinds. I must trust Perry's translation to differentiate between them.

Will the real galangal please stand up?

Galangal/Galingale is a rhizome and a relative of ginger and turmeric, but tastes like neither. It is sold in Southeast Asian markets and is commonly used in Thai and Indonesian cooking.

There are a number of related rhizomes in Southeast Asia. Of these three are sometimes confused by non-Southeast Asians:
(1) Greater Galangale - Alpinia galanga L. - laos/ lengkuas (Malay, Indonesian); kha (Thai)
(2) Lesser Galangale - Kaempferia galanga L. - kentjoer/ kencur (Malay, Indonesian)
and
(3) Fingerroot - Kaempferia pandurata or Boesenbergia pandurata - temoe koentji / temu kunci (Malay, Indonesian); ka chai / krachai (Thai)

All three have a camphoraceous scent: Kaempferia galanga and Kaempferia pandurata both have a strongly camphoraceous taste, while Alpinia galanga is much milder. All three look different when fresh, both the shape of the rhizome and the color of the flesh, and they all taste different, fresh or dried. Only the first, Alpinia galanga, is commonly used in food, while the third, Kaempferia pandurata, is rarely used in food, being more often used medicinally.

In Indonesia, Alpinia galanga is the one most often used in cooking and is used on several islands, whereas Kaempferia pandurata is used primarily on Java (and less often than laos even there). When Kaempferia pandurata is used, it is intentionally the dominant flavor in the dish and its name often figures in the name of the dish.

I've researched which galangal was used in Medieval Europe, but i haven't found anything definitive. Andrew Dalby in Dangerous Tastes suggests that both Alpinia galanga, which is modernly the most commonly available galangal, and Kaempferia galanga were used interchangeably, depending on what was imported, Europeans not particularly distinguishing between them.

However, i have found nothing about which of the two was used in the Near and Middle East. Since Alpinia galanga is more readily available and cheaper than Kaempferia galanga, that is what i usually use.

Mustard comes in numerous species:
1. White Mustard: Sinapis alba / Brassica hirta (the seeds are actually yellow to light brown)
White mustard originated in the Mediterranean region, but various cultivars are grown in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.

2. Black Mustard: Brassica nigra
Black mustard is endemic in the Southern Mediterranean region, where it has been cultivated for thousands of years.

3. Brown mustard:
a. Sarepta mustard or Romanian Brown Mustard (Brassica juncea) from Eastern Europe
b. Indian Brown Mustard (Brassica integrifolia or Brassica juncea, a fertile hybrid from Brassica nigra and Brassica campestris) from India and Central Asia

According to Gernot Katzer's web site, of the three species, black, Romanian brown, and Indian brown, the last is probably most commonly sold in the West (in the late 20th and early 21st centuries). He goes on to say: "Although the pungency of black mustard is slightly stronger than that of brown mustard, black mustard is hardly planted in Europe anymore, and brown mustard is the dominating quality on the European market. The reason is that brown mustard, unlike black mustard, can be harvested by machines which make production much cheaper in countries where working force is expensive."

Andrew Dalby in Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices speaks only of White Mustard. According to him, it was known in Greece 4000 years ago and was taken to India and China, where it was planted, even though there were indigenous mustards in those regions.

So, which mustard was used in Andalusia? It is likely to have been white and/or black mustard, rather than the now common brown mustard. In any case white mustard would be suitable, but if one has only access to brown mustard, that will do.

Long pepper is a relative of the small round pepper corns we use every day. For a time it was more popular than black pepper, but now it is difficult to find. It looks like a narrow cone about 3/4 of a inch long, medium grey, covered with tiny spheres. It is significantly hotter and more pungent than ordinary pepper.

Nigella (Nigella sativa L.) are matte black, somewhat pyramidal seeds from a plant related to the common garden flower Love-in-a-Mist. While the name for this spice in some Indian languages is kalonji, it is sold in some Indian markets as "black cumin" or "black caraway", even though it isn't related to either cumin or caraway, doesn't taste like either, and doesn't even look in the slightest like them. And sometimes it is called "black onion seed", because apparently they look somewhat like onion seeds. Nigella seeds are commonly used in Afghan bread.

Nutmeg and Mace come from the same tree. Nutmeg is not a nut, but the kernel of an apricot-like fruit. Mace is an aril, a thin leathery tissue between the stone and the pulp, bright red to purple when harvested, but changing to amber after drying. A jam is made of the fruit itself in Southeast Asia. In the Medieval and Renaissance periods, the nutmeg tree was found exclusively on the Banda Islands in what is now Indonesia.