Moriscos deliberately avoided furniture as part of a distinctive eating culture

Evidence

In their meals they were coarse. They always ate on the ground (they were that sort of people) with no table or any other piece of furniture that might smell of other people. In the same way they slept on the ground, on cushions that they called almadravas, or on their kitchen stools or on benches alongside, and that was so as to be the more ready for their acts of self-indulgence, when they got up for their nighttime snacks; they took their sensuous pleasure (refocilarse) whenever they woke up. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1897

Categorization

• DEFINE: The passage glosses almadravas (cushions) and refocilarse within the hostile description, which is useful for reading the whole source.