History
In 712, the Arab general Musa ibn Nusair arrived in Algeciras with an army of 18,000 soldiers to undertake the conquest 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 Peru 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 America referred to Venezuela and Peru, where they were given as rations to the Spanish troops. The popularity of this sweet in the 16th century is reflected in literary works such as Guzman Alfarache.
Read more about this topic: Alfajor
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