Are you ready for savory coffee? How about made-to-order meals from your local gas station or convenience store? Maybe? According to the professional foodies, these are some of the new food trends for 2025. There’s one trend, though, that I’m excited about, and it’s sauces — on and under everything. I’m a huge fan of them. Sauces can change a dish from ordinary to extraordinary and can make an ordinary meal into a memorable occasion, a celebration and even a tradition.

The following recipe for romesco sauce is having a bit of a comeback. It’s a variation of a Spanish sauce that I originally found a few decades ago in a cookbook called “Tapas” by Penelope Casas. Romesco sauce is quite similar to another dish that you might be more familiar with, muhammara. The main ingredients in both sauces are roasted red peppers and nuts. It occurred to me that these two sauces may have shared an origin many centuries ago, even though romesco is from Spain and muhammara is from the Middle East.

After a bit of research, reading through the history of Spain — thank you, Wikipedia — I think I understand how a dish with red bell peppers became so popular in both Spain and the Middle East.

Today, Spain is predominately Catholic but for centuries both Christians and Muslims lived on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). For almost 700 years up until the 15th century, they fought over control of the territories, sometime the Muslims ruled, sometimes the Christians.

During the 14th century, Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas from Spain. He returned with all kinds of exotic things, one of which was bell pepper seeds.

The Christians eventually won Spain back in the 17th century, banishing any Muslims who didn’t convert to Christianity. Reading between the lines here, bell peppers were by now part of Spanish cuisine and the exiled Muslims took seeds with them and made their own version — muhammara dip.

How fascinating that the humble bell pepper has such an interesting history.

Claudia Alexander, a resident of Marin County, has been happily cooking for family and friends for more than three decades. She has a weekly food blog, sweetbynurture.com. You can contact her at sweetbynurture@gmail.com