Smorgasbord of Andalusi and Maghribi Dishes and their Salutary Benefits

SMORGASBORD OF ANDALUSI AND MAGHRIBI DISHES AND THEIR SALUTARY BENEFITS – ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY COOK BOOK, ANWĀʿ AL- SAYDALA FÏ ALWĀN AL-AṬʿIMA, with Introduction and Glossary, by Nawal Nasrallah. Leiden: Brill, 2025, xxix+794pp. ISBN: 978-9004715844.

Reviewed by: Abdullah Drury, Wellington University of Victoria, New Zealand 

This is an extremely intriguing tome. The rather unwieldy title, Smorgasbords of Andalusi and Maghribi Dishes and their Salutary Benefits is a direct translation of the original 13th century Arabic title Anwāʿ al-Ṣaydalah fī Alwān al-Aṭʿimah by Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi-born scholar based in the United States . A distinguished food historian, literary translator, and expert in English literature, Nasrallah is renowned for her book Delights from the Garden of Eden (2003), her seminal work on Iraqi cuisine. She has also produced acclaimed annotated translations of medieval Arabic cookbooks, notably Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens (2007), a critical edition of Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh . Her contributions to culinary historiography and Arabic-English translation have garnered multiple awards and scholarly recognition.

Anwāʿ al-Ṣaydalah fī Alwān al-Aṭʿimah, constitutes a medieval Arabic cookbook comprising over 460 recipes, offers a compelling testament to the gastronomic sophistication of Moorish Spain. Its contents reflect a culturally pluralistic society wherein diverse ethnic and religious communities contributed to a shared gastronomic heritage . The text is notable for its rich regional lexicon and its embedded material culture . Initially published in the 1960s from a damaged, untitled manuscript with disordered folios and split texts, the work remained obscure.