Algerian Cuisine Cuisine Algerienne by Farid ZADI

Almost Italian- Italian-American Culinary Heritage

What does this have to do with Algerian cuisine? Well...

Almost Italian

Recipes and Stories from the ‘Little Italy’ Communities Across America-An Online Book In-Progress
by Skip Lombardi and Holly Chase

A big thank you to Charles Perry for mentioning this online cookbook. And thank you to Holly for emailing me a very thoughtful response to the comment I left on their blog.

One of the things I find fascinating about the Italian-American culinary heritage in the United States is that  so many of the immigrants came from "south of Rome" like the Italian pieds-noirs and workers who came to Algeria during French colonialism at about the same time period.

"Between 1860 and 1917, four and a half million Italians emigrated to America...Eighty percent of the Italians came from “south of Rome”—a slightly derogatory term used by Italians who came from “north of     Rome.” Most of the southerners were poor contadini and giornalieri, sharecroppers and day-laborers from Abruzzi, Campania, Calabria, Puglia, and Sicily. Many of these immigrants were also skilled artisans, but the language barriers, prejudice, and licensing restrictions they encountered often prevented them from working at their trades. So, initially, most worked at the same menial jobs as their paesani, countrymen."

 

Review of North African Recipes on Food Network's Website

I probably should have started these reviews a long time ago. After looking at many of the recipes available online I can see how certain stereotypes about North African cuisine have developed and why I am sometimes asked what I consider to be odd "cultural anthropology" kind of questions.

I'm a bit surprised to find that quite a few recipes spice dishes much more aggressively than I do. Certainly variations in spicing and quantities occur between Algerian/North African cooks. So, I'm not using that as a gauge for "authenticity" or "good taste". Taste is subjective and changes like fashion. I tend to prefer my dishes to be more subtly spiced or just "perfumed" with spices.

Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons recipe courtesy Boujemaa Mars, La Mamounia, Marrakech.

Ingredients:

Rock salt
1 whole large chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 large bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon real saffron
Pinch fine salt
1/2 pound onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 pound gizzards, optional
1/4 pound chicken liver, optional
1/4 cup mixed olives, pitted
3 small preserved lemons

This is certainly a real North African recipe. But I think it's really more for people who are already familiar with North African cooking, not a recipe for the uninitiated.  The addition of liver and gizzards is quite nice, but for an inexperienced cook the look of the dish could turn out rather unappealing.

One way to make the dish more visually cleaner would be to saute the liver and gizzards separately in a dersa spice paste, sprinkle with chopped herbs and use it for a garnish around the chicken .

The chef's recipe includes 3 small preserved lemons, it could be that the chef meant a type of very small lemon we have in North Africa, they are about the size of limes which would be the equivalent of an average to large American supermarket lemon .

If he meant lemons that are small American supermarket size then I would add a note for a non-North African audience to a recipe like this, "This recipe is definitely for lovers of preserved lemon. In North Africa there are cooks who add several preserved lemons to tagines to cater to locals who really love the briny lemony flavor. But this can be inaccessibly salty for those who aren't accustomed to the flavor. Since North African cooks prepare dishes to suit their personal tastes, reduce the amount of preserved lemons to suit yours".

Updating the traditional versus disrupting the spirit of the dish altogether

In my Emile Henry tagine recipe critique Cook worm  commented, "Thank you for this. I've come across many tagine recipes both in and outside of North African cookbooks, and some of the differences seem surprising. I'm wondering what you think is acceptable as far as expanding and conscientiously updating the traditional, versus disrupting the spirit of the dish altogether."

My critique of the recipe for chicken with preserved lemons and olives on the Emile Henry website was based on whether or not it's a good recipe. Normally I don't critique recipes, but these types of questions come up often enough for me consider posting reviews more often.

I found the Emile Henry recipe while googling for something when I came upon Kim Vallee's blog. I suspect that quite a few people have tried Emile Henry's recipe with disappointing results, perhaps they even suspected that it would be bad but trusted the company website enough to try it.

Their recipe is just plain awful and totally careless. There are so many chicken and preserved lemon recipes available online and in cookbooks for the life of me I cannot understand why they posted a terrible one on their website. Furthermore it's easy enough for such a big company to find an experienced recipe writer who understands North African tagine cooking.

My criticism of this particular recipe has nothing to do with whether or not it's "authentic" or "traditional". "Authentic" or "traditional" doesn't always mean delicious or even tasty.

Chicken Tagine with preserved lemon and olives recipe from the Emile Henry website

Occasionally I am asked to review recipes. A reader asked me about this recipe posted on Emily Henry's website .

1 chicken 1.5 kg / 3.3 lb, cut into pieces
2 preserved lemons
100 g / 1.5 cup green olives
3 onions, chopped
1 teaspoon ginger (fresh or dried)
1 teaspoon saffron
1 bunch flat parsley
1 teaspoon coriander / cilandro [sic], chopped
Juice of 2 lemons
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Salt, pepper

This is their list of ingredients. Throw the recipe out, it's no good. It will taste awful. The amount of olives, lemon, lemon juice,  and onions are excessive.  The dish will be much too salty and acidic. My mouth puckers just reading the recipe. The directions don't mention discarding the pulp and rinsing the rind. Imagine the sodium content of this dish!  The 1 teaspoon of chopped cilantro is amusing.