"I long for my mother's bread, my mother's coffee, my mother's touch". - Mahmoud Darwish. The link between homeland and food is the raison d'être of this new book entitled "The recipe book of exile: medieval gastronomic treasures from Al-Andalus and North Africa". This is a collection of recipes and cooking manuscripts written in the 13th century by Ibn Razin Al-Tujibi. This collection of texts has been organised and contains 480 recipes, including breads, stews, porridges, truffles, eggs, poultry and meat, vegetables, sweets and even a recipe for making soap.
Newman claims that the Arabs introduced a range of foods and spices into European cuisine in the Middle Ages, including sugar, carrots, aubergines and cauliflower. Even contemporary Italian foods such as pasta and cannoli filled with cream (listed among Al-Tujibi's recipes) are said to be of Arabic origin.