"Peter Dy" > wrote in message
.. .
[...]
> If you do a search on the web, there are Mexican, Honduran, Spanish, etc,
> albóndigas. It certainly originates from Spain, maybe even from the
Arabs,
> since the word comes from Arabic.


More on the Arabic origins he "Albóndigas, the Spanish word for
"meatball," derives from the Arabic al-bunduq, "hazelnut," meant to evoke
their form and size. The making of albóndigas date at least back to Islamic
Spain, for there are several recipes in the anonymous thirteenth-century
Hispano-Muslim cookery book Kitab al-tabikh fi Maghrib wa'al-Andalus."

http://www.cliffordawright.com/recipes/albondigas.html

Peter