[Sca-cooks] Couscous

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Patricia Collum wrote:
>  The winner was a couscous with dried fruits made by a seventeen yer old high
>  school student who's teacher brings her students from a distant rural high
>  school to our practices and events. I think it was the fact that it was a)
>  tasty and b) different then what one would expect for breakfast and from
>  couscous. It was definately the most talked about dish.

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa wrote:
>  Um, dumb question for the list: is couscous period?

Maire wrote:
>Yes.  There are a number of recipes for it/involving it in the Anonymous
>Andalusian cookbook, at the very least.  And there are references to a
>couscouserie (sp?)--that specialized kitchen equipment you make "the
>real thing" in. All the references I've run across, though, are in a
>stew/meat/"dinner food" context, and not what we'd (now) consider a
>breakfast dish.
>
>Interestingly enough, it doesn't always refer to the couscous as we know
>it today.  There's at least one recipe in there for a couscous made with
>dried bread crumbs that are steamed.  It's on my list to try some day
>when I have time.

For breakfast, while i have no evidence in "period", couscous is
often eaten as a breakfast food in the modern Maghrib, without meat
or vegetables, but with sugar and buttermilk.

And there is a Berber/Amazight tradition of barley couscous - it is
likely this goes back almost as far as there have been Amazight in
the Maghtib cultivating barley, but there's little historical
evidence, because it's country food, not what would be served by a
wealthy host. My daughter ate some when she was in Morocco in the
fall and winter of 2000. The family which is proud of its
Amazight/Berber roots, was very excited to eat it.

Here are the recipes for or related to couscous in the 13th Anonymous
Andalusian Cookbook

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Vinegar Tharîda, Which is One of the Best

Take the fatty meat from the fattest parts, chop it and put it in the
pot with salt, onion, pepper, saffron, cumin, garlic, strong vinegar
and a quantity of oil, put it on a moderate fire and when the meat is
done put in what you have of vegetables, such as large tender
turnips, eggplants and gourds, peeled and cooked separately (from the
meat). As for the eggplants, make the tharida with them whole and
uncut, and the turnips likewise, and the gourds  (should be) the
largest possible, after pressing out their water. And add vinegar to
taste and when it is all cooked, take it off the fire, moisten with
it the crumbled tharid of leavened bread and repeat the moistening
until it is ready, pour the couscous on it and it turns out
marvelously.


Soldiers' Couscous (Kuskusû Fityâni)

The usual moistened couscous is known by the whole world. The fityâni
is the one where the meat is cooked with its vegetables, as is usual,
and when it is done, take out the meat and the vegetables from the
pot and put them to one side; strain the bones and the rest from the
broth and return the pot to the fire;  when it has boiled, put in the
couscous cooked and rubbed with fat and leave it for a little (p. 57,
verso -- HM actually says p. 57, recto here) on a reduced fire or the
hearthstone until it takes in the proper amount of the sauce; then
throw it on a platter and level it, put on top of it the cooked meat
and vegetables,
sprinkle it with cinnamon and serve it. This is called Fityâni in Marrakesh.


I Have Seen a Couscous Made with Crumbs of the Finest White Bread

For this one you take crumbs and rub with the palm on the platter, as
one rubs the soup (hasu; unless this is a scribal error for hashu,
"filling"), and let the bread be neither cold nor very hot; put it in
a pierced pot (the colander-like perforated top portion of a
couscousiere or couscous steamer) and when it's steam has left, throw
it on the platter and rub with fat or moisten with the broth of the
meat prepared for it. I have also seen a couscous that one makes from
a fat chicken or stuffed and fattened capons and it was as if it were
moistened only with fat, and in it were turnips of Toledo and "cow's
eyes."


Tharîd Mudhakkar with Vinegar and Whole Onions

Take fat beef, cut it in the pot with salt, pepper, coriander seed,
saffron, cumin and strong vinegar; when it is almost cooked,  add big
whole onions without cutting them, cooked separately, and finish
cooking it all; when it has finished cooking, take the pot from the
fire and moisten with it a tharid crumbled from clean bread kneaded
with white flour dough, and when the tharid absorbs it and is level,
arrange the meat and the whole onions and serve it. And you might
moisten couscous with it.

---------------------

Anahita