How food was used to segregate, surveil and accuse Moriscos in hispanic monarchy, XVIth century

Abstract

During the 16th century, several issues related to the Moriscos’ way of life in the territories of the Hispanic Monarchy were the object of what we could call “social disputes”, in view of the regulation of life promoted by the Monarchy, the Catholic Church, and veiled forms of resistance from this minority group. The quest for a social uniformity that followed the forced baptisms would affect cultural aspects of the Moriscos in many ways, including food. If the manner of rearing, slaughtering, cooking animals, as well as the choice of spices, flour, legumes, vegetables, and fruits, by the Moriscos (conversos) had elements in common with those of the Peninsular Christians, aspects that functioned as markers of identity, surveillance and control mechanisms, also remained. The manners of sitting at the table, fasts, prohibitions, prayers while eating, holy days or descriptions of hunger in times of revolts or pilgrimages (Mudejars) are part of this panorama. We seek here to address the diet of the Moriscos (and Mudejars) from plural and heterogeneous sources, records both from the Moriscos (and Mudejars) point of view and Hispanic Christians (from the Monarchy and the Catholic Church), in addition to those recorded by foreign travelers. We used ballots, decrees, laws, a Synod, bans, letters, apologetic writings, texts by jurists on Islam, reports of journeys to Mecca and visitors to Granada, among others. This documentation allows us to glimpse some points about the commensality of a social group, surviving as a “minority” amid a Catholic world that linked them to Islam.