Couscous. Can’t-Miss Festival and Origins of Mexican Couscous
I’m green with envy. I would give anything to be in Los Angeles on the 16th and 17th October, for the couscous festival, run by Susan Ji-Young Park, a frequent commentator on this blog, and her husband Farid Zadi. Here’s what Farid has to say about the genesis of the festival.
My parents immigrated to France (from Algeria) in the 1960s with little more than the clothes on their backs. Now I’m in Los Angeles about to open my own culinary school in a $3 million dollar kitchen. I learned how to steam couscous from my mom. She’s illiterate. Now I’m organizing a festival in honor of a food she made almost everyday.
Now if that doesn’t sound intriguing, how about this? You’ll find Paula Wolfert, with her wonderful gift for translating Mediterranean dishes for American use, who writes so eloquently about the cooking of the Mediterranean, Faye Levy, among her many accomplishments a go to person for Jewish cooking in the Mediterranean, Clifford Wright whose Mediterranean Feast effortlessly moves between history and recipes, and Charles Perry, famous as much for for experimenting with medieval Islamic fermented bread condiments and other risky forays into forgotten foods, as for his impeccable scholarship on the cuisines of medieval Islam. All in all, my favorite combination of terrific tastes and nerdy expertise.
Since I can’t be there, here’s a long distance contribution to the festivities. Some time ago I gave a ca 1815 Mexican recipe for wheat couscous and a slightly tricky-looking recipe for maize couscous that tried to duplicate the texture.
Ta ta. I recently discovered the origin of the first recipe. Well now I know where that first recipe came from. So simple I should have checked immediately. It’s the the great Spanish cookbook of the 17th and 18th century, Motiño’s Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizcocheria, y Conserveria, widely used by criollos (Mexican-born Spaniards) in New Spain. My reprint of the 1763 edition (it was originally published in 1623) has a longer recipe “Como se hace el alcuzcuz” (how to make couscous) and also “Como se guise el alcuzcuz.” (How to prepare the couscous). Compare the wording and its clear that whoever it was in San Luis Potosi who wrote out the long recipe, this is where it originally came from.
If the Spanish stamped out heretic couscous, how come that detailed recipes were still published in mid-eighteenth century Barcelona and shortened and transcribed and adapted in early nineteenth-century Mexico? Just around Independence.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Much appreciated!
Agreed, it doesn’t make all that much sense that a recipe for couscous would be published in 17th century Spain if there was a long standing ban on the dish. It is a bit of a mystery really.
Early recipes for couscous were published in Italy (1570) and Portugal (1680). Maybe there was no effective ban by this time. A more interesting question is if couscous was actually eaten in Spain at this period. There weren’t very many cookbooks published in Spain during this period and Motiño’s was the most popular, so the recipe in this cookery book was in circulation for well over a century. Which doesn’t mean the recipe was actually used.
The appearance of the recipe in Mexico suggests that it may have been made, but again I would have to see some sort of documentation outwith a published recipe. Documentation of a meal etc.
I wonder how long was couscous prepared in Mexico and when it fell out of favor, if it ever was prepared like Adam suggests. I have no recollection of it, nor did I know what it was until I came to Texas. But then again, I was only born in the Mid 20th Century.
If recipes were found circa Independence in Mexico,could it be as a culinary rebellion by my Arabic ancestors against the Spanish?
Who on earth said there was a ‘ban’? What a stupid idea… considering the proportion of food of Arabic origin that is still common in Mexico thanks to Spain.