The cloudy origin of buñuelos. The arab contribution

These Roman models of fried pastries, inherited and passed down by the Visigoths, were immediately adopted and improved upon by Arab cuisine. This cuisine regularly used frying, as its most prominent dieticians considered this method of cooking to be easy to digest, as well as healthy and particularly useful for chest conditions.

This fondness was greatly helped by the fact that Roman and Visigothic Baetica, later known as Al-Andalus, was an important area for olive cultivation and olive oil exports to the capital of the Roman Empire. Its Muslim conquerors found a unique supply of olive oil there, which was difficult to market, so they chose to use it. They soon took advantage of the possibilities offered by this territory, and their agronomists learned to distinguish very carefully and precisely between the different qualities, as well as how to use each of them in culinary practice. It is true that they also used other oils, such as sesame oil, rediscovered in the not-too-distant past, or almond oil. Their uses and consumption were based on an elaborate dietary-gastronomic theory that determined the rules to be followed when preparing a particular dish.

Not everyone agreed with this perspective. Some, such as Al Arbuli, author of a Nasrid treatise on food entitled Kalam al-agdiya, believed that they were difficult to digest. This author expressly states that ‘Foods fried in oil, such as fritters (al isfany) … are all slow to digest.’

Despite these specific opinions, fried dough, sweet, fried in oil and then generously sweetened with abundant honey and later with sugar, is very common in Andalusian cuisine. The two recipe books from this region that have been preserved are the anonymous 13th-century Almohad Hispano-Maghrebian book entitled Kitab al tabij and the Fadalat al-jiwan by Ibn Razin al Tuyibi (ca. 1227 Murcia–1293 Tunis). Both contain different recipes for this type of sweet, possible precursors of today’s recipes, among which buñuelos (fritters) occupy a significant place.

The choice of honey and then sugar, its obligatory substitute, as condiments in these preparations is surely due to the fact that both products are identified by Islamic dietetics as beneficial for respiratory pathologies. Reasons of this nature, among others, are surely the motives behind the Arab cuisine’s assiduous cultivation of frying, an area in which it achieved a level worthy of the most illustrious and sophisticated gastronomic virtuosity.

They may have been incorporated into our island cuisine through Roman cuisine, but one undoubted route of arrival would be from Arab culinary culture, to which we owe so much. At least, this seems to be suggested by the etymological identity of our bunyol, with the Arabic word bunyul, from which the Spanish buñuelo also derives. Buñuelos or alfinges (from isfany = sponge) were the most popular fried food consumed by the working classes of Al-Andalus and were commonly sold in souks (markets or bazaars) as well as at all kinds of feasts.

Al-Andalus cookbooks from the 13th century already include several types of buñuelos. The most basic was made with a dough composed of semolina or flour, hot water, salt and yeast, which was left to rest until it fermented. By then, the variety known as buñuelos de viento (wind fritters) was already known, which required a moderate addition of oil to the dough. Ibn Razin al Tugibí expressly states that ‘those who want them puffed up should add eggs to the dough’.

The doughnut makers in the souks developed a quick technique for making doughnuts, described by Ibn Razín in his culinary treatise entitled Fadalat al jiwan or Relief of the tables on the delights of food and different dishes:

[…] when the oil is hot, take a little dough with your left hand and close your fist so that a little comes out over your thumb and index finger. Cut it into pieces and put as many as will fit in the pan.

It is very possible that the name “buñuelo” (fritter) comes from this way of gathering the amount of dough for each portion in a closed fist before placing it in the pan. It would be a phonetic evolution of the Latin pugnus (fist), in which the p of puñuelo was changed to the b of Arabic, adding the diminutive suffix of Romance –uelo. If we accept this hypothesis, buñuelo would mean “little fist”. However, it seems that the most typical shape of buñuelos was round, as described in the anonymous 13th-century Spanish-Maghreb treatise, translated by Mbrocio Huici Miranda. Its pages, when discussing the making of ‘sfinges’, explain that ‘they are made into meatballs and fried in that shape’.

This method of preparation did not prevent Ibn Razín from also considering their preparation in the form of a ring, as can be inferred from his words:

The dough must be tested before making a rosca with it. If [when fried] it remains open as it is and rises to the surface of the oil after cooking, hollowing out inside, it is a sign that the dough has risen; if not, it should be left to rest longer.

In the Maghreb of the 7th century, a pan-fried fruit known as sfenj was made, which was brought there by the Moors expelled from the Peninsula. Its presence is attested to in the writings of the Trinitarian friar Francisco Ximénez, who spent several years in Tunisia and Algeria at the beginning of the 18th century. Today, a sfeny or buñuelo is still made in Morocco, which is believed to have Andalusian origins. It consists of a kind of doughnut-shaped churro, which can be compared to the one described by Ibn Razín in the recipe.

The Andalusian tradition of making buñuelos was maintained and preserved by the Moriscos, both those who remained in the former Kingdom of Granada and those who were dispersed throughout different regions of the Iberian Peninsula or who embarked for the American continent. This was how buñuelos and other fried fruits arrived in the New World, becoming part of the cuisine of many of those countries. Sixteenth-century texts often refer to the fondness of the Andalusian population for fried fruits. An example of this identification can be found in Francisco Delicado’s Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza, where the protagonist, Aldonza, boasts of knowing how to make ‘hojuelas, pestiños and alfajor doughnuts, textones de cañamones and sesame seeds, nuégados, xopaypas…’. As we can see, this is an extensive list which, although it does not specifically mention buñuelos, includes numerous varieties of fried pastries that must have been common in Moorish kitchens at the end of the 16th century. 

These fried dough treats have also been part of Christian cuisine in Catalonia since medieval times. They appeared from the very beginning, when this cuisine began to take shape, adopting and incorporating dishes from neighbouring cuisines, including Muslim cuisine. Numerous literary references confirm their early and extraordinary spread. We will have the opportunity to follow their vicissitudes later on, as their trajectory will take us almost uninterrupted to the present day. 

Antoni Contreras Mas, is a researcher and promoter of Mallorcan gastronomy.