An alfajor or alajú ( (Arabic الفاخر) plural alfajores) is a traditional Arabic confection found in some regions of Spain and then made with variations in countries of Latin America including Argentina, and Mexico, after being taken there by the colonists. The archetypal alfajor entered Iberia during the period of al-Andalus. It is produced in the form of a small cylinder and is sold either individually or in boxes containing several pieces.
In Spain there are completely different recipes, but the most traditionals contain flour, honey, almonds and several spices, such as cinnamon. It is most commonly sold around Christmas but in Medina Sidonia are sold the whole year round. The real alfajor was made in this town since ancient times and their development, called "alajú", passed from father to son.
Today is still a totally craftsman, developed by the same procedure, and very natural, with honey, almonds, hazelnuts, sugar, flour, breadcrumbs and mixed with natural spices. In Medina Sidonia there's an annual production of approximate 45.000 kilograms, mostly consumed in the province of Cadiz, but they are also famous in Sevilla, Malaga and Huelva.
The 15th of September 2004, became ratified with geographical indication by the Consejo de agricultura y pesca de la junta de Andalucia and published in the Official Journal of the European Union as Alfajor de Medina Sidonia the 6th of March 2007.
In the province of Cuenca, Spain, its still called alajú and its made with almond, honey and figs, all wrapped in a wafer.
Medina Sidonia was the capital of the arabic world confection in where the alfajor has centuries of history with a recipe that has been transmited from generation to generation. In this town, there's an account of Mariano Pardo de Figueroa a gastronomist that documented the history of this sweet, better known for his pseudonym Doctor Thebussem, in where he wrote that the second of July of 1487, Enrique de Guzmán, second count of Medina Sidonia, ordered the council and majors of the region to send to Malaga 50 cows, 50 oxes, 200 calves and provision of alajú from his city.
The recipe documented by the accounts of Thebussem in the 19th century is defined as the following:
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In South America due to the lack of ingredients and habits, alfajores were made totally different. Nowadays, they are found most notably in Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, Perú and the South of Brazil. Though the food has been popular in Argentina and Uruguay since the mid 19th century, it has its roots in the Arab World.
Etymology
As the Spanish philologist and dialectologist
Manuel Alvar López writes in his intense work,
alfajor, would be an andalusism for the castellanism
alajú, derived from the
Arabic word الفاخر, [al- fakhur], which is not known, neither found in América, where andalusians introduced it as alfajor, from the arabic word alfahua that means honeycomb Both words had been introduced in the greatests Spanish dictionaries in the 14th century.
The publication of the historical dictionary of the Spanish language allows us to document both, alajur very broadly written as alajú and alfajor. Alajur and multiple geographic variations is a sweet made of a paste of almonds, nuts, breadcrumbs and honey. It is effectively possible that alfajor and alajú were arabisms introduced in the Spanish language in different places and time, and, supposing that both came from the same etymon, from the phonetic point of view, alajú is an arabism of the castillian and so it's still alive in Cuenca, Toledo, Guadalajara and in la Sierra de la peña (France); meanwhile the variation alfajor is Andalusian and Murcian. In the Americas, the meaning of the word alfajor was not known until the 19th century.
History
The arab general
Musa ibn Nusair arrived to Algeciras with an army of 18,000 soldiers in 712 undertaking the conquer of Medina Sidonia,
Alcalá de Guadaira and
Carmona. A similar sweet called alajú is found in the Arabic-Hispanic cookbook of anonymous author
tabīkh Kitāb. The Spanish grammarian Nebrija appointed the word for the first time in his Latin Dictionary Nebrija-Spanish (1492) as: 'alfaxor' or 'alaxur'. In the 12th century Raimundo Martin describes in his book 'vocabulista' another possible etymology of the Hispano-Arabic 'fasur' meaning ' nectar '. The presence of this sweet is evident in the area of southern Spain during the 12th and 13th centuries, being developed in Andalusia since the days of Al-Andalus until today. Due to the popularity of this food they already were in the warehouses of the first ships of the Spaniards on their way to America. The earliest references to its presence in Latin referred to Venezuela and Peru, where they were given as ration to the Spanish troops. The popularity of this sweet in the 16th century is reflected in literary works such as Guzman Alfarache.
Preparation and presentation
The regulation regards the use of only pure honey, almonds, nuts, breadcrumbs, sugar, flour and spices such as aniseed, sesame, coriander, cloves and cinnamon. The Protected Geographical Indication alfajores are meant to be presented in a cylindrical shape, with a minimum weight of 30 grams each and with a minimum size of seven inches in length and a diameter of 1,5 cm. Each of them will be protected with a wrapping paper and the ends made an ornament in a spiral shape with a ribbon out of the same paper. Once individually wrapped may be packaged in wood or cardboard, but never in a plastic. boxes.
Variations in the Americas
alfajores]]
In most American alfajores there are two layers of cake, and a filling in between. In Argentina its basic form consists of two round sweet biscuits joined together with dulce de leche or jam and covered with powdered sugar. Another popular feature of the alfajor, although not always present, is a coating of black or white chocolate (many alfajores are sold in "black" and "white" flavours). There's also one variation, called "Alfajor de nieve", that instead of having a white or black chocolate coating, it has a "snow" coating. The "snow coating" consists of a mixture of egg whites and sugar. Peruvian alfajores are usually coated in powdered sugar, as seen in the picture, and are filled with manjar blanco. Most alfajores come packaged in aluminium foil, in Mexico they are made with just coconut, and are normally a tri-color coconut confection, in Nicaragua, they follow more in the lines of the Canary island type of alfajores and are made with molasses and different type of grains including corn, and cacao similarly to most chocolate bars, though hand-made are just as accessible and generally packaged in plastic wrap or wax paper.
Other varieties of alfajor include different elements in the preparation of the biscuits, such as peanuts; they also vary the filling and coating and even add a third biscuit (alfajor triple).
Uruguay: the biggest southamerican alfajor
On december 11 of 2010 in
Minas,
Lavalleja Department,
Uruguay was made the biggest alfajor in the world in Guinness' book.
More than 25 people participated in the development along with hundreds of people gathered in the center of
Minas in the National Day of Alfajor(
Fiesta nacional del alfajor)
See also
Moon pie, a similar North American confection
Gallery
References
Category:Argentine cuisine
Category:Peruvian cuisine
Category:Chilean cuisine
Category:Uruguayan desserts
Category:Andalusian cuisine
Category:Desserts
Category:Spanish products with protected designation of origin
