Tunisian cuisine

Arab cuisine has many forms and flavours. From the Emirates in the East to Morocco in the West dishes, both, elaborate and simple, have been determined for millennia by local resources and historical interactions. The two wide stretches of water, the Arab Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea and multiple rivers have created quite different environments for the emergence of a vast range of recipes although there is commonality of many basic ingredients.

There are four main regional cuisines: Eastern Arabian (the Gulf); Levantine (Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and to a certain extent, Iraq); Egypt-Sudan; and the Maghreb (Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya). Every national cuisine is unique and contains local dishes and ethnic variations. Cookbooks in English presenting Arab foods often combine sample recipes from a number of countries but leave out recipes inspired by family cooks. While there are cookbooks for many individual Arab countries, until 2022 there was no cookbook dedicated to Tunisian cuisine in English to introduce that country’s individualistic dishes to global gourmets and gluttons.

This gap has been filled by Hafida Ben Rejeb Latta with “The Tunisian Cookbook: A Celebration of Healthy Red Cuisine from Carthage to Kairouan,” published by London-based Nomad which specialises in history and travel books in English with a regional focus as well as translations from Arabic fiction, poetry, politics, and philosophy.

Latta introduces readers by tracing Tunisian cuisine’s early roots from Berber cooking to ancient Carthage which was settled by Phoenicians and conquered by the Romans. Tunisia became the Roman empire’s breadbasket. During the latter days of that empire, Tunisian pagans were turned into Christians. The next conquerors were Muslim Arabs who brought the social graces, manners, produce and spices of the East and converted the population to Islam. Tunisia gained new culinary insights and dishes after incorporation into the Ottoman and French colonial empires. Tunisia also benefitted from its close proximity to Italy, especially Sicily.

Asked by Gulf Today why she called Tunisian cuisine “red,” Latta replied that many dishes feature tomatoes. While this is one of the multiple ingredients that distinguish Tunisian cooking. There are many more.

Couscous dominates Tunisian dining tables. Couscous, a Berber invention is the staff of life in Tunisia and other Maghreb countries. Couscous is a granular form of pasta made from semolina, rubbed with fine flour, turned into a paste with water, and dried, making it easy to store. Couscous distinguishes Maghrebi cuisine from the cuisines of the Eastern Arab World where rice and bread provide the carbohydrate background of meals.

Couscous in Tunisia and other Maghreb countries is partnered with chicken, lamb, and fish – the latter is a speciality of Tunisia – along with vegetables and chickpeas and, is served with a condiment called “harissa.”

Latta elaborates on the versatility of couscous by saying, “A hybrid of couscous is served at every special occasion in the holy month of Ramadan.” This is “prepared with milk and a little honey for the Ramadan sundown iftar,” breakfast.

Harissa is another key ingredient of Tunisian cuisine. This is a paste made of dry red chillis, roasted red peppers, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and spices, notably cumin and coriander. Tunisian harissa is hotter and sharper than the harissa in Algeria and Morocco. According to Latta, in Tunisia harissa can be added in small quantities to a multitude of dishes to give them zip.

Lebanon’s mugrabieh, a stew of semolina pearls, chicken, chickpeas, and small onions flavoured with cinnamon is a distant offshoot of couscous.

Liberal use of spices and chillis also distinguishes Tunisian cuisine from that of neighbouring Algeria and Morocco as well as most countries in the Eastern Arab world, with Gazan Palestinians being an exception as far as chillis are concerned. Latta grants a full page to a list of spices, herbs and other flavourings used in Tunisian cooking. They contribute a great deal to its special character.

She describes another key Tunisian speciality, brik by calling it “a truly national dish,” which was introduced by the Ottomans and adapted by Tunisian cooks. She writes, “This delicate deep-fried envelope of [puff] pastry is usually filled with a satisfying slurp of egg skilfully rendered so that the white is cooked and the yolk is runny.” Briks are made with chicken and vegetables and the inevitable eggs. When dining in a restaurant in Tunis, I always order spinach brik as an appetiser before tackling couscous and harissa. Just as there is sweet couscous, there is a sweet brik, “samsar,” made with powdered almonds, eggs and essence of geranium and served hot or cold.

The Tunisian tajin is defined by Latta as a “spicy tortilla.” This combines a variety of vegetables – spinach, parsley, artichokes, and aubergines – with eggs, tomato paste, chickpeas, chicken, cheese, or tuna to make a satisfying meal which can be eaten hot or cold. In Morocco, a tajin is normally a stew.

Hlelem consists of thin, hand-rolled noodles which imported from Andalusia after the 16th century expulsion of Muslims and Jews. Hlelem are served with stews made with merques (spicy sausages), lamb, beef, or dried meat.

“Beja Chakchouka” is an intriguing regional dish from Beja which combines pumpkin with chestnuts, raisins, sugar, salt, paprika and olive oil.

These dishes show just how different Tunisian cuisine is from the familiar cuisines of the Gulf and the Levant. The dozens of other recipes Latta has included in the book cover a multiplicity of dishes which display how geography, history, and natural resources, combined with human ingenuity, have shaped the distinct cuisines of Tunisia and its neighbours Algeria and Morocco.

Photo: TNS