The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook: A Digital Map of Faith and Food in Islamic Spain

Abstract

My project examines the overlap between trade and religion in medieval Islamic Spain. Traducción española de un manuscrito anónimo del siglo XIII sobre la cocina hispano-magribi, an anonymous culinary guide initially compiled in the 13th century, is distinct from other European cookbooks of the same period. It hails from al-Andalus, a region of Spain that, at the time, was under Islamic rule and the site of an unusual degree of intermingling between its Christian, Jewish, and Muslim citizens. Treating the book as a microhistorical object, I intend to trace the trajectories of specific spices and ingredients, from their countries of origin to their ultimate role in each of faith communities of al-Andalus. To better understand the impact of certain foodstuffs on the social and religious fabric of medieval Spain, I intend to create a layered map that simultaneously traces trade routes and contrasts them against Spanish faith communities.

I will also turn to humanist and fine arts methodologies often outside the scope of digital literary studies to experiment with alternative approaches to interacting with a text. For instance, can we experience the demand on an actor's body more viscerally if we can engage with a text's violent language tactilely rather than visually or aurally? In this vein, I have already done some work with 3D modeling and laser cutting to produce 3D objects that tactilely render the violence of a text's language—allowing the reader to feel, rather than simply see, the violence. Moving forward, I hope to incorporate performance art components that will ask readers to engage physically and kinesthetically with a text. By incorporating these interdisciplinary approaches to the texts I study, my digital project is a response to distant reading and big data methods currently prevalent in digital literary studies, and aims to demonstrate the exciting possibilities of increasingly interdisciplinary digital agendas.