Morocco is the only Arab country that was never conquered by the Turks, and it has preserved and elaborated unique culinary traditions with roots in medieval Moorish Spain as well as North Africa. Even today, its king can organize huge food festivals which give us a sense of what it was like to dine there four centuries ago when it was a major player in Mediterranean politics. Compare with Charles Perry’s December talk, “Banquets of Istanbul.”

Charles Perry majored in Middle East Studies at Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley. After graduation he pursued a writing career, serving as an editor and staff writer at Rolling Stone from 1968 to 1976 and a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times Food Section from 1990 to 2008. He began collecting medieval Arab cookery manuscripts in 1980 and has published widely on Middle Eastern food history.