CUISINES BY REGION
was in the period between 878 and 1091 while under Arab occupation
that the island of Sicily flourished, and its capital city, Palermo,
reached a population of three hundred thousand. It was famous for its
Arab architecture and its walled gardens, in which lemon and orange
trees blossomed. The Arabs greatly improved the island’s water supply
through irrigation, reservoirs, and water towers, and they revolution-
ized agriculture and fishing. Vegetables and spices introduced by the
Arabs were buckwheat, carob, cumin, pistachios, spinach, sugarcane,
saffron, and tarragon, all of which still bear their Arab names in Ital-
ian. Dates, melons, rice, and sugar were grown on a large scale. Expert
fishermen, the Sicilian Arabs caught tuna and swordfish, and pre-
served the fish and fish roe by means of pressing, salting, and drying.
Sicilian cookery was enriched by Arab methods of preserving food
that also included drying fruits and vegetables, by distillation, and by
the use of flower essences, as well as pistachios and carobs, as flavoring
agents. Early in the ninth century an Arab army is said to have
brought durum wheat to Sicily, and it was from there that durum
wheat pasta spread throughout the Italian Peninsula. A separate tradi-
tion of pasta making was supposedly centered on Genoa, and it, too,
seems to have been strongly indebted to the Arabs.165 Modern Sicilian
food is known for being hot, spicy, and sweet, qualities that are also
characteristic of Arab cuisine. With the arrival of sugarcane on the is-
land Sicily became internationally famous for its sweets. Like Mont-
pellier, it produced a variety of nut and seed confections called comfits
that were eaten by the nobility at the end of a banquet. Other Sicilian
desserts included sherbets (sorbetta), ice cream (gelato), nougat candy
(torrone), marzipan (marzapane), almond clusters (confetti), elaborate
cakes such as the Cassata alla Siciliana, and last but not least the cap-
pelli di turchi or “Turkish Hats” that appeared as “Turk’s Heads” in
the Castilian and Anglo-Norman sources, illustrating once again the
international flair that surrounds medieval European upper-class
cookery.
GERMANY
The food of German-speaking Europe was quite different from that
of the Mediterranean world in the Middle Ages. This was in part due
to the fact that the climate was harsher, which made it impossible to
cultivate olives, almonds, and citrus fruits, for instance. And with most
of central Europe being far removed from any ocean, the main fish to
be had were freshwater fish. Ocean fish, if available at all, were usually
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