Couscous and Tagine: A History of North African Culinary
Traditional North African cooking, despite the changes that have been made over time, is still very similar to the food that our ancestors ate thousands of years ago. Ancient forms of couscous and tajine were known to the Numidians during the reign of King Massinissa , and even before that. In this article, we will discover together the history of these two emblematic dishes of our region.
Couscous
Wheat and barley were widely grown throughout North Africa, and the semolina made from them was a staple food for the first North Africans. They ate it on its own, or with goat's or sheep's milk. It was called seksu (ⵙⴽⵙⵓ), from the verb kusus, meaning to grind.
Steaming couscous probably originated in the Kingdom of Numidia . Primitive couscous has been found in tombs dating back to the reign of Massinissa .
After the Arab conquests, the indigenous populations of North Africa still ate couscous. The couscous recipe, as we know it today, seems to have undergone some changes around the 12th century: the dish is not mentioned during the Zirid dynasty (972-1148), but it is mentioned during the Almohad Caliphate (1121-1269). At the same time, the Arabic cookbook by Ayyubid (Egyptian sultanate, 1171-1260) contains three couscous recipes. A couscous dating back to the 12th century has been found in Sous, Morocco, the oldest since Massinissa .
Couscous is likely to have spread to Spain with the Moorish conquests, although it is no longer part of traditional Spanish cooking today. However, the dish is still found in Trapani, Sicily, according to an old Andalusian recipe.
Tagine
Meat and vegetables cooked in an earthen pot was undoubtedly the oldest and most common cooking method in North Africa. The oldest fragments of tagine date back to the Kingdom of Numidia. Even more surprising: fragments of North African pottery, including a primitive form of tagine found in Scotland, have been found along the Antonine Wall! This pottery was probably brought by North African soldiers in the Roman army, who were stationed there; Quintus Lollius Urbicus, who was governor of Roman Britain from 139 to 142, even had a Numidian background.
Although its origins date back to the Atlas Mountains, the Arabs seem to have adopted the culture of the tagine during the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), the greatest of the Abbasid caliphs. The tagine is even mentioned in the One Thousand and One Nights. Today, it can be found throughout the Middle East.
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