Talk:Sfenj

September 2025

I removed this because it's WP:SYNTH: 1) the first sentence says that "Sfenj's ease of preparation contributed to its loss of popularity" (which doesn't make any sense and is not supported by the cited source). 2) it then goes on about sufganiyah (a doughnut that has its own article, again, citing sources that aren't about Sfenj). M.Bitton (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

No objection from my side, except that it should be mentioned that "sfenj" is called "sufganiyah/sufganiyot" in Israel (according to this source) with a wiki link to the corresponding article. Ideophagous (talk) 06:05, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Where does it say that "sfenj" is called "sufganiyah/sufganiyot" in Israel? M.Bitton (talk) 01:47, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

You're right, my statement was inaccurate. I was referring to this section:

The word sufganiyot can be traced back to the Greek word sufan, meaning “spongy” or “fried,” as can the Arabic word for a smaller, deep-fried doughnut named sfenj. This could perhaps be where these treats got their name; similar fried balls of dough have been eaten to commemorate Hanukkah for centuries by Jews in North Africa... But these Moroccan and Algerian treats didn’t have the modern sufganiyot’s characteristic jelly filling, which is where migrants from Central Europe came in.

So something like: the term shares the same etymology as sufganiyah, another Hanukkah treat which came with Jewish migrants from Central Europe. Ideophagous (talk) 06:33, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Infobox "Place of origin: Al-Andalus" is unsupported and contradicted by cited sources — proposal to correct with sources

This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus. — Newslinger talk 20:03, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Should the infobox "Place of origin" be changed from "Al-Andalus" to "Morocco / Maghreb", and should the lead sentence "Sfenj originated in Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain)" be revised to reflect the nuanced, contested history rather than stating a singular origin as definitive fact?

The problem

The article's infobox states Place of origin: Al-Andalus. The History section opens with: "Sfenj originated in Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain)."

Wikipedia's own History section carries a maintenance tag (added February 2024): "Some of this section's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources."

Issue 1: The primary cited sources call Sfenj "Moroccan"

The two sources cited for the Al-Andalus origin claim are:

• Ref 13: خديجة الرحالي, "السفناج" مهنة عريقة في المغرب العربي في طريقها للاندثار, Asharq Al-Awsat, No. 12001 (7 October 2011).
• Ref 14: حسن أوالفقر, "الاسفنج" فطائر مغربية تحضر الى المائدة من بطون التاريخ!، Asharq Al-Awsat, No. 9248 (24 March 2004).

The title of Ref 14 — the primary source for the Al-Andalus claim — translates directly as: "Sfenj: Moroccan pastries coming to the table from the depths of history!" The word مغربية (Moroccan) appears in the title of the very source used to claim Al-Andalus origin. This is the same citation paradox found in similar disputed articles.

The title of Ref 13 translates as: "The sufnajeen trade: an ancient profession in the Maghreb on the path to extinction." — It explicitly frames Sfenj as a Maghrebi profession and tradition, not an Andalusian one.

Neither source URL is currently accessible to verify the body text, which itself falls under WP:V concerns given the existing reliability tag on this section.

Issue 2: Reliable English-language sources consistently identify Sfenj as Moroccan

Multiple high-quality English-language sources call Sfenj a Moroccan food item:

• Serious Eats (2025), by Nargisse Benkabbou: "Golden, crispy, and deliciously chewy, sfenj are Morocco's beloved yeasted doughnuts." The same article notes: "Originally believed to have originated with the Andalusians, sfenj share similarities with other fried doughs found across North Africa." — Note: Serious Eats hedges the Andalusian origin as a belief, not a fact, and primarily identifies the food as Moroccan. URL: https://www.seriouseats.com/sfenj-moroccan-doughnuts-recipe-11738392
• The Spruce Eats, Caroline Benlafouih: "Sfenj Recipe — Moroccan Doughnuts or Fritters" (already cited in the article as Ref 1).
• The Great Book of Couscous (Copeland Marks, 1994): Cited in the article itself (Ref 7), groups Sfenj under Moroccan cuisine.
• The article's own lead states: "In Morocco, the term 'Sfenj' is used, also sometimes nicknamed in the literature 'Moroccan doughnuts'." (Refs 5, 6, 7)
• The article is categorized under Moroccan cuisine in Wikipedia's own navbox.

Issue 3: The lead misrepresents the scholarly consensus

The statement "Sfenj originated in Al-Andalus" is presented as a standalone declarative fact. However:

• The most authoritative food sources identify Sfenj primarily as Moroccan/Maghrebi.
• Even sources that mention the Andalusian theory frame it as a belief or legend ("According to legend, Sfenj was created by mistake..."), not an established origin.
• Al-Andalus ceased to exist in 1492. The Marinid Dynasty in Morocco (1270–1465) is mentioned in the article's own History section as having known Sfenj — which predates or overlaps the end of Al-Andalus. This contradicts a simple "originated in Al-Andalus, then spread" narrative.
• Per WP:WEIGHT, a fringe or contested origin theory should not be presented as definitive fact in the infobox or lead.

Proposed changes

Field	Current	Proposed	Rationale
Infobox "Place of origin"	Al-Andalus	Morocco / Maghreb	Supported by Serious Eats, The Spruce Eats, and the article's own sourced lead text, which calls Sfenj "Moroccan doughnuts"
History section lead	"Sfenj originated in Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain)."	"Sfenj is a traditional Maghrebi food, particularly associated with Morocco, where it has been central to street food culture for centuries. Some sources link its origins to Al-Andalus, though this remains a matter of historical debate."	The Andalusian theory is a legend, not a scholarly consensus. Sources consistently frame Sfenj as Moroccan/Maghrebi.

I welcome discussion from other editors and am happy to provide additional source analysis.

Bohosquare1 (talk) Bohosquare1 (talk) 12:46, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi Bohosquare1, I have collapsed your comment here per WP:AITALK, as it was clearly generated by a large language model (i.e. an AI chatbot). Additionally, I have disabled your request for comment, as the RfC statement (the text between the {{rfc}} tag and your first signature) and is not "neutrally worded and brief", as required by WP:RFCBRIEF. You are free to rephrase your comment in your own words, and to start another request for comment that meets the procedural requirements. — Newslinger talk 20:03, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Infobox "Place of origin" and the Al-Andalus claim

I want to raise a concern about the infobox and the opening of the history section. The infobox currently lists Al-Andalus as the place of origin, and the history section opens with "Sfenj originated in Al-Andalus." Both claims rely on two Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper articles (references 13 and 14), whose URLs are no longer accessible. Looking at the titles of those same sources, reference 14 translates as "Sfenj: Moroccan pastries coming to the table from the depths of history" and reference 13 translates as "The sufnajeen trade: an ancient Maghrebi profession on the path to extinction." The sources cited to support the Al-Andalus origin claim actually describe Sfenj as Moroccan and Maghrebi in their own titles.

On top of that, the history section has carried a reliability maintenance tag since February 2024. The article itself notes that the Marinid Dynasty, which ruled Morocco from 1270 to 1465, already knew Sfenj well before Al-Andalus ended in 1492. English-language reliable sources such as Serious Eats (2025) describe Sfenj as Morocco's well-known yeasted doughnut and treat the Andalusian theory as uncertain rather than established fact.

I am not suggesting we remove the Andalusian connection from the history section entirely. That discussion belongs there with proper attribution. What I am questioning is whether the infobox, which presents a single place of origin as a settled fact, should say Al-Andalus when the sources cited do not actually support that claim and the article's own content tells a more complicated story.

Should the Sfenj infobox field "Place of origin" be changed from "Al-Andalus" to "Morocco" or "Maghreb", given that the cited sources are inaccessible and their titles describe Sfenj as Moroccan/Maghrebi? Bohosquare1 (talk) 20:49, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose the proposed change. The earliest known recipe of Sfenj (known as "Isfanj" back then) dates back to the 13th century (written by the Andalusi scholar, Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī). There are other sources (not the best, but certainly better than what's in the article) that mention its Andalusi origin. It goes without saying that it has evolved since then (like very doughnut out there), but that doesn't change its origin; and besides, we're not describing it as "Andalusian", we acknowledge the fact that (nowadays) it's Maghrebi in the first sentence. M.Bitton (talk) 23:42, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks for engaging on the content. A couple of things worth looking at more closely though. The Ibn Razin al-Tujibi cookbook you cite as ref 1 has the full title "Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib." The author fled Murcia during the Reconquista and wrote the cookbook in Tunis around 1260, drawing on both Andalusian and North African recipes. So a recipe for Isfanj appearing in that book doesn't tell us it was Andalusian in origin, it could equally have been a North African recipe he was documenting. The book itself covers both culinary traditions together.

  The third source you cite, the Murad (2024) Academia.edu paper, actually says in its text that "Isfanj survives today across North Africa (Al-Tujibi and Newman 181); they are known as Sfenj in Algeria and Morocco." That's your own cited source describing Sfenj as a North African survival, not an Andalusian export.

  You also say the article acknowledges it's "nowadays" Maghrebi in the first sentence, which is fair, but the question here is specifically about the infobox "Place of origin" field. That field is supposed to reflect where something comes from, not where it spread to. Given that the two sources currently cited in the article for that claim are both inaccessible and their own titles describe Sfenj as Moroccan, I think there is a genuine sourcing problem with the current infobox text regardless of what the better sources might eventually say. WP:V Bohosquare1 (talk) 00:20, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

On this discussion as an RfC

• @Bohosquare1: It's your first day of editing, and already you've started three RfCs - two on this page and one at Talk:Shebakia, and two of them have already been terminated. The first one was also badly malformed; that one and the second were also against WP:RFCBRIEF in several ways. I suggest that you read Wikipedia:Requests for comment carefully, particularly the part about "Before starting the process". Ask yourself this: does it really need to be a full-blown thirty-day formal process that pulls in all manner of random outsiders (like me), or would a normal talk page discussion suffice? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:51, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: would it be possible for you to close this? It's just going to waste everyone's time without achieving anything. M.Bitton (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

  Fair point and I take that on board. You're right that a normal talk page discussion is the better starting point and I should have gone that route first before jumping to a formal RfC. I've now replied to M.Bitton directly on the content above. The core question is straightforward: the two sources currently cited in the article to support "originated in Al-Andalus" are both dead links, and their own titles describe Sfenj as Moroccan and Maghrebi. That's a WP:V issue that doesn't really need a 30-day RfC to resolve if editors here can simply look at whether the sourcing holds up. Happy to keep it as a talk page discussion for now. Bohosquare1 (talk) 00:26, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

References

RFC

Should the infobox "Place of origin" field for Sfenj be changed from "Al-Andalus" to "Morocco" or "Maghreb"? Bohosquare1 (talk) 15:19, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Four days on, and you've raised another RfC, your third on this page. What has happened since the last one was terminated that now justifies another? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:23, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

(Summoned by bot) Note: I opened the collapsed section and see the process has not changed.

This is an editing issue. When there is no perceived emergency, bearing in mind that a discussion "doesn't really need a 30-day RfC", some of us do many things and get involved, personally or Wikipedia-wise, in things that may be time-consuming. Four days is not an abnormally long time to wait for some reply. We are all (mostly) volunteers. When the other potential remedies are skipped, like when a contentious edit is reverted, a suggestion is disagreed with, or is not given immediate attention, there are other options. RFC's are time-consuming.

I did see an issue. The Requesting other editors' help for content disputes section adds confusion that should be dealt with. The "Requests for comment" subsection has two more subsections below it. One is "Third opinion," and the other is "Dispute resolution noticeboard". That subsection states that Disputes are sometimes referred to a more appropriate venue (such as Requests for Comment). This really should be the last sentence. An RFC should be the last option per the opening paragraph, Many disputes can be resolved without external input.... I will bring that up there.

It seems to me some confusion could be where there is an issue. I don't know (just surmising), but this is ill-conceived at best, certainly improper, and should be withdrawn or closed. If the initial opposing editor does not reply, then seek alternatives. -- Otr500 (talk) 11:22, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@Redrose64 Fair question. The previous RfC was closed because the statement wasn't brief and neutral. This one is a single sentence. The talk page discussion has been open since 1 March with M.Bitton's oppose on record, so it has had time to develop normally. That felt like enough to try again with a properly formed RfC Bohosquare1 (talk) 13:28, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

If there is a factual dispute about the place of origin (e.g., two countries bickering over who "really" invented it), then that line should be completely removed from the infobox, and both claims explained in a paragraph or two of written text. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, and that would be a real improvement here. The two sources currently cited in the article for the Al-Andalus claim are both dead links, and their own titles describe sfenj as Moroccan and Maghrebi. The article also notes the Marinid dynasty in Morocco already knew sfenj before Al-Andalus ended in 1492, so the origin story is genuinely complicated. Removing it from the infobox and laying out the different claims in the article body with proper sourcing would be much cleaner. Bohosquare1 (talk) Bohosquare1 (talk) 10:23, 21 March 2026 (UTC)