From the Yangtze basin to the marshes of the Guadalquivir: The introduction of the cultivation and consumption of Asian rice (Oryza sativa) in Al-Andalus during the Middle Ages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1344/eha.2016.28.149-167Keywords:
cereals, Asian rice, African rice, geoponics, salt marshes, irrigation, waterwheel, ditches, seedlings, infection, malaria, watermill, flour, semolina, bread, cooking recipes, dietetics, diarrhoea, astringencyAbstract
Asian rice was domesticated around 8,000 BC in Southern China, from where it expanded towards the south and west. Its cultivation penetrated the oriental Mediterranean in the second century AD through Egypt and Palestine. For Greeks and Romans, the new cereal was no more than an exotic and secondary food. The impetus of its expansion corresponded to the Arabs, who, between the tenth and twelfth centuries, spread its cultivation and consumption throughout North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. In Al-Andalus rice became a luxury food for the privileged social classes.
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