Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī was a 13th-century

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Andalusi scholar who wrote "one of only two cookbooks to survive" from that era. Al-Tujībī was born in 1227 to a wealthy family of scholars living in

Murcia Murcia ( , , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the Ranked lists of Spanish municipalities#By population, seventh largest city i ...

. The

Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...

led many Muslim families to flee, including al-Tujībī's. In 1247 the family ended up in

Béjaïa Béjaïa ( ; , , ), formerly known as Bougie and Bugia, is a Mediterranean seaport, port city and communes of Algeria, commune on the Gulf of Béjaïa in Algeria; it is the capital of Béjaïa Province. Geography Location Béjaïa owes its ...

. By 1259, al-Tujībī had relocated to

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

. While al-Tujībī wrote many books, only his cookbook, ''Fiḍālat al-Khiwān fī Ṭayyibāt al-Ṭaʿām wa-l-Alwān'' "Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib", survives. The cookbook was composed in Tunis around 1260. The cookbook was composed of recipes from al-Tujībī's Andalusi heritage, where dishes had Muslim, Christian, and Jewish influences. Until 2018, it was thought that there was no complete copy of the book remaining, until an accidental discovery at the

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. Bink Hallum asked for the expertise of the food historian Nawal Nasrallah, who realised the significance of the finding. Nasrallah has since translated a copy version of the book into English, which was published in 2021. There are three known extant manuscripts of the text: * Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Wetzstein 1207 * British Library, Or5927 * Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid), Gayangos XVI Daniel Newman translated the cookbook under the title ''The Exile’s Cookbook: Medieval Gastronomic Treasures from al-Andalus & North Africa'', which was published in 2023.

See also

References

Further reading