Alcuscuz de trigo (Wheat couscous) in Nineteenth Century Mexico
Thanks Susan, Adam and Paula for the comments on the couscous recipe I posted earlier today. I’ll return to those later. First I’ll talk about where this couscous recipe (title as above) comes from.
It’s from a manuscript cookbook dated 1817 and compiled in Mexico, probably in San Luis Potosi. The book was published in 2002 under the guidance of one of Mexico’s leading food historians, Jose Luis Curiel in the series Coleccion Recetarios Antiguos published by Conaculta (Consejo nacional para los artes y la cultura) then headed by another fine food scholar, Jose Iturriaga. Jose Luis thinks the manuscript was intended for publication, being written in a fine hand and indexed. It consists of 289 recipes.
So what kind of context can we give this? San Luis Potosi is a fine colonial town, the last outpost of civilization 250 miles north of Mexico City before you go up on to the high, dry, desolate altiplano that stretches 300 hundred miles or so to the northern colonial town of Saltillo (close to Monterrey). It has a distinguished culinary tradition and this is not the only early manuscript to survive from the region. In 1817 Mexico was in the midst of the wars of Independence.
The main categories into which the book is indexed are:
sopas and guisados (soups including dry soups and stews). This also includes a number of salsas, most of them unlike modern Mexican salsas.
guisados de chile. This is where a lot of the Mexican dishes such as mole crop up but also things like sardinas en escabeche.
masas. This is where the alcuscuz comes in along with breads and a lot of elaborate sweet dishes, not all of them based on starches.
leches varias. Various milks, not a category that corresponds to anything we know, including pig’s feet in milk and rice pudding.
conservas varias. Mainly fruit conserves.
cajetas y dulces secos. Fruit and milk “cheeses.”
As to the flours that Paula and Susan ask about. The white flour is “flor de harina” which means the finest of white flours, sifted or bolted various times. The coarse flour is “semita” the lowest of the four grades of flour found in colonial Mexico (used to make semitas).
And guess what? There are more couscous recipes to come. Lots and lots of questions to ask about all this. And for general background, here’s a link to my article on the Mexican Kitchen’s Islamic Connection.
- Any thoughts on this couscous recipe?
- Alcuscuz de maiz (Couscous of corn) in early nineteenth-century Mexico
That is really interesting as I’ve seen no substantial evidence that couscous was made in Spain during this period, even though there was knowledge of the product.
I would add that one thing to be mindful of is that in the early 19th century cookbooks often had “exotica” recipes. So the publication of a recipe doesn’t mean that they were made or even known in a particular region.
For instance From England:
“Domestic Economy and Cookery, For Rich and Poor” (1827)
“African Cuscussou:
Mix some of the finest dry sifted flour in a mixture of yolk of egg, warm water, and butter ; or water, cream, or milk, and granulate it with the points of the fingers amongst dry flour, till it takes a proper consistency.
Prepare a fowl very nicely for boiling, boil the gizzard, slice it nicely, without detaching it, blanch the liver, put them into the wings, and lay the fowl into a saucepan that will just hold it, with a steamer fitted to it ; season it with mace, white-pepper, and lemon zest; put in a little water or milk, and put the steamer over it, with the granulated flour or cuscussou; make it boil, and leave it in the embers to steam till it is thoroughly cooked ; in the mean time prepare, according to the quantity, hard-boiled eggs, coloured with saffron ; dish the fowl, pour the cuscussou over, and stick the eggs in at proper distances. Any other meat or fish may be so cooked, or with rice, instead of the cuscussou.”
Thanks Adam and for reposting that interesting recipe from your blog. I want to return later to your two points. First, relations between Spain and Mexico, Mexico or New Spain really having an independent trajectory at this stage and looking to Spain as, well, not a model to be emulated. Second, exotic (or I might rather say) cosmopolitan recipes not to be cooked. That could be the case here but as I continue with this section, I think the balance of the evidence suggests that at least in this family something like it probably was known and cooked.
Really interesting the alcuscuz recipe. From the name I automatically think at the Al-Andalus influence in Spain. I’d love to read the recipe in Spanish as written in the original, I’ll try to get the book.
About semita, I still haven’t read your articles, but I wanted to mention that here in Argentina it was also the name for the whole wheat flour and in the northwest of the country you still can ask for “bollos de semita”.
P.S.: Being interested in the history of dulce de leche, I’m really curious about the cajeta category. :) I guess the book is “Libro de cocina de la gesta de Independencia.”. Is that right? Thanks,
Marcela
Yes that’s the book and I when I get a moment (not this weekend as I have family visiting) I will try to post the recipe in Spanish. My translation is pretty free but I think hits the essential points. Semitas the same in Mexico. You might want to read my article on the Islamic influence on the Mexican kitchen as background if all this interests you. And yes, let’s talk about cajeta and dulce de leche.
My father is correcting me :) , so I have to rectify: it’s “cemita” or “acemita”. Different type of “bread rolls” are called so, not only in the NW but also in the Cuyo region (at least when my mother was a kid). And he’s telling me also about a citation of Ricardo Palma a Peruvian writer (s. XIX)… As you can tell, cemita it’s a family matter at this point. :) I’m reading your semitas article right now.
For the recipe, I’m not in a hurry, naturally. I’m just curious, the kind of curiosity that does not die soon. I’m looking forward too, to talk about dulce de leche.
Nice to meet you Rachel, and thanks to Susan who linked your article. :)
Rachel – is this from “Libro de cocina de la Gesta de Independencia: Nueva España” (1817) it actually gives recipes for wheat and maize couscous. Could the inclusion of these recipes in Mexican cookbooks be related to developing a seperate identity to Spain as there seems to be a number of “independence” recipes?
Regarding couscous in Spain, one of he plays of Pedro Calderón de la Barca is quite interesting as in one of the main plays one character is called “couscous”.
(In translation):
Gabces: Well, friend, what shall I call you ?
Alcuzcuz: “Rice”, Since my name among the Moriscos was plain Alcuzcuz, among Christians it is Rice; ’tis proper, Since I change my Moorish pottage, I should get a Christian name.
Hi Adam, independence anywhere as I am sure you agree brings nationalist recipes. I am not sure though that that would have been the motivation here. The Calderon de la Barca quotation is a gem. Thanks for posting it. More on all of this soon.
This article confuses the term “Islamic” (islam is a religion) with Arabic or Berber (ethnic terms). One does not speak of a christian or budhist cuisine the term “Islamic cuisine” sounds bizarre.
The cuisine that emerged in Andalusia was an amalgam derived from indigenous products, and imported ones from North Africa. The Arabs who invaded Spain were few in number. They had invaded and conquered North Africa before making their way to Spain, and the bulk of their troops was Berber. While the Arabs were soldiers after bounty for the most part and preferred combat and invasion, (they were nomads from the Arabic Peninsula) writings of the period indicate that they seemed not to get along with Iberian natives, and they left Berbers behind to administer the conquered territories. The Berbers brought with them above all their staple food, couscous….
Thanks for the comment Essaouda. “One” may not speak of christian or buddhist cuisine but this particular one (me) most certainly does. I think they are crucial concepts for understanding global food history. And the reason is that these belief systems, especially when allied with the power of the state, shaped cooking and eating in very distinctive ways, albeit neither unchanging over time nor neutral with respect to geography.
Agreed about the complex Arab-Berber history of conquest of Andalucia. But that does not mean that Islamic cuisine of the Caliphate (and the accompanying agriculture, plants etc) was not imported to Spain. I strongly believe that it was.
Adam, it is an interesting aside connecting food and religion.
to give you an idea of how complicated current berber-arab discourse is…
i am berber algerian. i was raised berber (shawi dad and kabyle mom, although there is some saharan berber in our family too- tuareg). the dialect of algerian that my family speaks is berber-arabic. the whole berber-arab question is in many ways a political product that was born of french colonialism, then later reinforced by north africans who wanted to follow an arab nationalism.
the modern berber cultural movement was started by algerian berbers. look up modern usage for tamazight, imazighen, tamazgha, the berber flag, berber study centers, etc.. it was started by algerian berbers. so, too funny for me when i read about how “berbers call themselves imazighen” yadda yadda, we all just called ourselves by the region we were from and the identification didn’t even have to do with language. and the manufactured outrage against the term “berber” get over that too.
when i came back home one day from being away for school/work, my berber family had decided to identify themselves as arabs for the sake of national identity and peace. i went along with it, why not? it seemed an easy way to just go along with something for algerians to be united.
i respect arab culture and language. and i know that it was the most major and profound influence in north africa in every realm. for me to say “i am arab” (i have done this in the past and still do) means that i speak some form of arabic and respect the arab cultural elements that came with the islamic package. arab culture and islam have been in north africa more than a thousand years. it is hardly “foreign” or “invasive” anymore.
anyway, rachel i agree with you about the islamic cuisine that was introduced to north africa and imported to andalusia. i absolutely trust that you are looking at this objectively.
and Essaouda, can you please use your real name here and link to any websites you have? are you north african? a berber? because north africans do not naturally use arab or berber as ethnic terms and neither has rachel.
Thank you Farid. You taught me a whole lot. I have to hang my head and reveal that I had no idea of all that recent history though when I think about it, there are parallels in many ex-European colonies. I hope I get an appropriate moment to post this so all readers can see it.
And as to people who don’t or won’t reveal their real identities. They get one shot and then I just ignore them!