Ya Rayi Our Rai

Roll Your Own..... Couscous by P. Wolfert

(updated with more photos)

I know! Just the thought of making your own couscous gives you a headache, but in fact it's easier than making your own pasta or bread and delivers the same satisfaction: a sense of wonder at the magic of it all.

I don't know why it took me so long to start teaching homemade couscous. Once I did, putting on a show costumed in my printed blue and white pantaloons and sitting on the floor the way North African women do, I remembered how much fun it was and how astonishing the results.

Now spurred on by terrific feedback from my students, I demonstrate couscous making whenever I get the chance. I've taught the staff at Chez Panisse and at the Napa Valley Culinary Institute of America. I like to think that there are chefs across the country who are 'rolling their own'- couscous, that is.

(Photo of Paula Wolfert making homemade couscous taken by Christopher Hirsheimer in 2001)

 

The March of Couscous by Farid Zadi

(Photo of Brazilian cuzcuz courtesy of Nana in Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Hard wheat semolina couscous is a Berber creation and the staff of life in the Magrhreb countries of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. One of the earliest written references is in an anonymous thirteenth century Moorish cookbook. There is some evidence that the style of cooking couscous  has it's origins in West Africa where couscous dishes are oftentimes made with millet.

There are written references on how  quickly couscous  spread to the Mashriq or Arab Levant, especially berkukis (semolina pasta balls) that later became called Maghribiyya meaning to make like the Maghrib  is a clear reference to it's origins.  A 13th century Syrian historian describes four recipes for couscous, one of them is called Maghribian.

Israeli couscous is toasted berkukis and is not an Israeli culinary invention, rather it is a marketing term invented in the 1950's by a firm in Tel Aviv. To suggest that it was 'invented' and not related to couscous, maghrbiyya or berkukis betrays ignorance of well documented historical facts. Most likely couscous and berkukis were introduced by Sephardic Jews into Israel.

Tunisian Fricassee by Farid Zadi

Tunisian fricassee is unlike any other dish tagged with the word "fricassee." Fricassee in Tunisia refers to a fry bread sandwich stuffed with typical Tunisian sandwich ingredients.

The French introduced sandwiches when they colonized North Africa. Baguette bread is the most commonly used. I discussed the possible origins of this sandwich with Anis, aTunisian friend  and colleague of mine who attended culinary school in Tunisia.

We concluded that  fricassee is a play on meaning,  fri=fry and casse=breaks, the bread is fried and then 'broken' or split to be stuffed with tuna, capers, hard boiled egg, parsley and harisa.

We also concluded that the fry bread was invented by street vendors who oftentimes did not have access to baguettes or ovens to bake their dough. By frying the dough they had self-contained businesses.

If you want to try making this at home you can use a basic baguette dough recipe that calls for 2 cups of flour.  After the dough has gone through it's first rising  split it into 8 balls and flatten gently into a disk, let rise again and fry in hot oil.

Couscous by Farid Zadi

I received an endearing email the other day from a woman who is half Algerian asking me for an Algerian couscous recipe she remembers having as a child growing up in Germany. The  recipe is based  on her grandfather's who has a restaurant in Paris and she sent me a list of possible ingredients. I will try to recreate the dish for her.

Maghribi Cuisine by Farid Zadi

In my "Algerian Cuisine" post I  broke down influences  into five groups.  The crude breakdown is  a starting point and in no way meant to reduce the complexities and intricacies of Algerian cuisine or  Maghribi cuisine to a static set. History is a living, breathing thing.

1) Berber (Amazigh) food can be described is sustenance cooking.  The Imazighen people were established in North Africa over 3000 years ago. Here is a link to Berber Kingdoms and tribes.  The largest Amazigh tribes are in Algeria and Morocco. But smaller groups are in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt as well. The Amazigh culinary genius is in elevating humble ingredients through sophisticated cooking techniques. The most obvious culinary contributions to Maghribi cuisines are couscous, the couscousiere and tagine cooking.

Morocco and Algeria both have Saharan influences. There has been very little written about the culinary contributions of Sub-Saharan North Africans, mostly they were assimiliated into Imazighen/Arab culture.

(In my attempts to introduce and encapsulate elements of North African culture/cuisine, I've kept my posts short. I welcome comments and questions for more in depth 'answers')

Algerian cuisine by Farid Zadi

I posted earlier about Wahrani Rai music. Music and food are a part of culture.  And culture cannot be understood without discussing the historical threads that make up the ever-weaving web. I found this article  about the Music of Algeria by Dwight Reynolds, University of California-Santa Barbara.

ALGERIA HOLDS a singular place for Arab culture as a region in which the musical traditions of Islamic Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the eastern Arab countries (the Mashriq), Saharan and West African, Berbers, Bedouin and Europe have all interacted to various degrees. Morocco to the west was never directly exposed to Ottoman and eastern Arab musical traditions; Tunisia and Libya to the east have had far less contact with sub-Saharan and West African musics and far more direct contact with the musics of the their eastern neighbors.

Algerian musical influences can be applied to culinary influences as well. To simplify I'll break it down into five groups.

1) Berber and Saharan.

2) The Arabs.

3) Andalusian or Hispano-Arab, Moors/Moriscos.

4) Ottoman Turks.

5) French colonials.