The Arabs were important in the creation not only of the Mediterranean but also the European food pattern. They brought to Sicily and southern Spain new crops such as the citrus fruit, sugar cane, spinach and aubergines.

Something that many don’t know is that the use of dry pasta came from the Arab world. Pasta was known since ancient times, but in the Middle Ages, dry pasta spread in western countries thanks to the Arabs. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi reports that dry-pasta commerce spread all over the Mediterranean, in Christian and Muslim countries alike. It was the moment of the globalization of pasta.

Massimo Montanari
scholar in Food Studies