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Concencia wrote:
"So at least you do admit of the Arab influence as far as language, well how about the rest, customs, food, architecture and more."
I'm sure there's Arab influence in our culture. During my two month stay at Dubai, U.A.E. we hit the town on the first day. I found this store and guess what they had? The little bag of Rosita galletitas! You know the one with the pink, white and yellow flower on top? Walking down the block I find a Cuchifrito place. Fried potato balls and pastelillos, except they were stuffed with chicken and not pork. I bump into my PR friend and the first thing we said to each other, "Did you see the Cuchifrito place? lol! Later on during one of my trips to the market I was feeling hungry. I stopped by at this store that listed Chicken soup. Sat down and had Chicken soup just like mom use to make. The only thing different was the Nam bread which I enjoyed. I've noticed a similarity between belly dancers and Vedette's. Here's a shocker. I was looking though a Morroccan cookbook and found the recipe for one of their oldest dishes. Guess what it was? PASTELES! With chicken of course. Wrapped in Banana Leaf and all. We must remember that the Palm tree is not native to the islands. They were brought by the Spanish. Martinique, Grenada and most of the Lesser Antilles have been making pasteles for centuries. Don't forget Aceite is arabic too.
Yes there is much evidence of Arab culture in the Spanish culture. How could it not be after 800 years of rule. That is why the standard beauty of a Spanish woman is black hair and eyes, as oppose to blond and blue eyed.....remember those velvet picture frames of bullfighters and flamenco dancers your mom use to hang on the livingroom wall? There are many traditions we are not aware of that are Arabic in origin via Spain.
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