and the other golden yellow. Western Mediterranean Roman influence on the entire Mediterranean region was so considerable that to this day, the basic food in most of the region is still wheat bread, olives, olive oil, wine, cheese, and the occasional piece of meat or fish. The territories from the Atlantic to the Italian Peninsula, and especially the Catalan and Occitan-speaking areas were closely interrelated culturally and politically. The Muslim conquest of Sicily and southern Spain was highly influential on the cuisine by introducing new plants like lemons, pomegranates, eggplants and spices such as saffron. The coloring of food and many other cooking techniques were passed on by the Arab invaders to their European possessions and were gradually spread to regions further north. Iberia The Iberian Peninsula has a highly varied geography with a central Meseta, a vast, flat plateau, surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges and cut off from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees. This meant that several distinct cultures co-existed on the peninsula with several unique cuisines. Since Ancient times it had been a colony of several Mediterranean cultures. The Phoenicians introduced the cultivation of olives and the Greeks brought the Malvasia grape, founding a wine industry that would become renowned in the Middle Ages. But it was the Roman Empire, of which the peninsula was the westernmost outpost, that had the biggest impact on Iberian cuisine. After the collapse of Roman rule, Visigothic invaders conquered most of the modern day Spain and Portugal in the 5th century. The Visigoths took on many Roman customs, like the focus on vegetables, and used Latin for official purposes. But it was the invasions of North African Muslims and the establishment of Al-Andalus that gave Iberian cuisine its unique nature. The Muslims brought with them the highly refined cuisine influenced by Arab courts in the Middle East. The center of this Arab civilization was Baghdad, at the time one of the largest cities in the world. The new rulers introduced many new customs and foodstuffs; goblets made of glass rather than metal, savory meat dishes cooked with fruit, spices and herbs like cinnamon, mastic, caraway, sesame and mint and the use of ground almonds or rice as thickeners and a fondness for adding tangy liquids like verjuice, tamarind and the juice of bitter oranges to produce a distinctly sweet-sour taste. The impact can clearly be seen in the