Category Archives: Arab cooking

Of Purple, and of Scarlet: The Mysterious Pomegranate

November 11, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof …” Exodus 28:33-34 Every autumn, just as leaves finally fall from the trees and gardens wilt and squashes go wild with bumps, I pass quickly by the bins of scarlet pomegranates in the grocery store. Their mystery intimidates me, yes, these pomegranates. I yearn for the courage to transcend my book knowledge of this ancient fruit, […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Art, Cooking, Photography, Pomegranates • Tags: Arab Cookery, Demeter, Fruit, Hades, Mythology, Persephone, Photography, Pomegranates, Song of Songs

Two Moons and a Ksar

September 4, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

It’s funny how sights, sounds, and smells trigger memories, isn’t it? Tastes, too. When I photographed a blue moon the other night, a very specific image bubbled up for me.* Perhaps, in a way, you could deem it a Proustian madeleine moment. Although I didn’t really eat anything. Standing there, trying to keep the camera still as the small telephoto lens pulsated in rhythm with each of my heartbeats, I remembered a night in Morocco, in El Kalaa des M’Gouna, […]

Categories: Africa, Agriculture, Arab cooking, Cooking, Food writing, Moroccan Cooking, Morocco, Photography • Tags: Morocco

An Imam in Paris: Al-Tahtawi’s Visit to France (1826–1831) by Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi, Translated by Daniel L. Newman

May 14, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“For readers interested in early encounters between European and Arabic culture, An Imam in Paris: Al-Tahtawi’s Visit to France (1826–1831) provides an alluring glimpse into the life and thoughts of one man who recorded Parisian life around the time that Orientalism firmly captured the European imagination.” Rare is the native English speaker who reads and writes Arabic, classical or otherwise. And thus a vast body of literary work lies inaccessible to those who desire to increase their understanding and appreciation of the Arabic-speaking […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Book Reviews, Egypt, France, French Cooking • Tags: al-Tahtawi, Arabs, Daniel L. Newman, Egypt, France, Ottoman Empire, Travel memoirs

War. Cook. Eat. Love.

April 10, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey* (Free Press, 2011) , isn’t the first person to cook her way through trying times. Nor will she be the last. But the makeshift kitchens where Ms. Ciezadlo peeled purple eggplant or stirred onions caramelizing for Mjadara Hamra (Lentils with Bulgur Wheat) happened to be in a couple of war zones, neither one in a New York high-rise or a Tuscan olive grove. No, unlike the heartbroken cook in Lily Prior’s La Cucina […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Book Reviews, Food News, Food writing, Garlic, Iran, Middle East • Tags: Annia Ciezadlo, Baghdad, Christian Science Monitor, Day of Honey, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Mohamad Bazzi, New York Times

French cooks Annals of Caliphs' Kitchens

Mezze … and You Get a Curfew with That, Too

August 1, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In Haiti, the earthquake of January 12, 2010 destroyed numerous lives and many structures, including Petionville’s cathedral and central plaza. Sadly, the people of Haiti still are suffering, from the effects of the earthquake and from a long tortured history. Like so many former French possessions, Haiti—once called France’s “Pearl of the Antilles”—still looks to France for many things, including food. The following story recalls other difficult days in Haiti, the tumultuous months and years after Baby Doc’s flight into exile […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Eggplant, France, French Cooking • Tags: Arab cooking, Baba Ghanouj, Baby Doc, French Cooking, Haiti, Le Phoenicia, Lebonese Cooking, New Book of Middle Eastern Food, Petionville

Couscous in France: It’s a Long Story

June 28, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

To look at all the Maghrebi/North African restaurants in Paris, you might be tempted to think the food they serve appeared only recently in France. It’s not hard to visualize this scenario when you consider the exodus of pieds noirs and Harkis (local men who served as soldiers for France) that occurred as Algeria fought for independence from France, culminating in 1962 with the Evian Accords. Think about the numbers – guesstimates, yes: over 900,000 pieds noirs and 91,000 Harkis […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Arab cooking, Cookbooks, Couscous, France, French Cooking, Moroccan Cooking, Morocco • Tags: Charles de Clairambault, Clifford Wright, Couscous, Françoise Bernard, France, Francois Rabelais, Garnantua, Ginette Mathiot, Harkis, Je Sais Cuisiner, Jean-Jacques Bouchard, La Bonne Cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange, Mohamed Oubahli, Morocco, Pieds noirs

An Ancient Mediterranean Taste: France’s Boutargue

June 20, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The Egyptians who fled to Marseille from Egypt after the Napoleonic debacle there (1801) brought with them a hankering for batarekh, now called boutargue or poutargue in Provençal. Happily, Marseille happened to be a place where they could find batarekh, a caviar-like product made from the pressed and dried roes of grey mullets (Mugil cephalus). Eaten sliced potato-chip thin with olive and lemon juice, batarekh dated back centuries to ancient Egypt. At the time that the refugees stumbled off the […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Egypt, Fish, France, French Cooking • Tags: Africa, Ancient Egypt, Batarekh, Boutargue, Egypt, Francois Rabelais, French cuisine, Marseille, Potargue, Simeon Seth

A Taste Sweeter Than Meat, More Ancient Than Wine

March 7, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Olives, pungent, demanding, a taste acquired. Their beauty belying their bitterness, their hardness. Sunshine and human hands transform tartness into fragrant fruit and nectared oil — fare of peasants, armies, kings, and saints. From ancient, twisted roots comes timeless provender, oily, meaty, food until long journeys’ end. Spread out under the vast sky, waiting for the signs That signal harvest, a reaping of first fruits Beaten with sticks or prodded with hooks, the branches weep their bounty, tumbled to earth, […]

Categories: Agriculture, Arab cooking, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Local foods, Olives, Photography, Poetry • Tags: France, French Cooking, Kalamata, Olive, Olive oil, Photography, Tagines, Tapenade

Alain Ducasse (Photo credit: Executive Class Blog)

Culinary Diffusion? Yes, in Alain Ducasse’s Kitchens

January 18, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In a way, it’s the French version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” World-famous French chef, Alain Ducasse, chose fifteen women from Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris housing mostly poor immigrants mainly from France’s former North African colonies. An article in The New York Times tells the whole story, almost a Cinderella saga: 15 Women Win Golden Tickets to Alain Ducasse’s Kitchens – NYTimes.com All are from Sarcelles, all were either born outside of France or are first generation immigrants. […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Arab cooking, Chefs, Cooking, French Cooking • Tags: Alain Ducasse, Chef, Cooking schools, Cuisine Francaise, France, French cuisine, Haute Cuisine, Mali, North Africa, Paris, Sarcelles

Sugar, Saffron, Spices — The Arab Influence on Spanish Cuisine, a Brief Meditation

June 2, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Spanish food enjoys some quite heady popularity right now. Trendy magazines and the international food punditry (for example, Matt Preston in Australia) say “Si” to Spanish cuisine and predict a continuing surge of enthusiasm for the food of the land of Don Quixote. Just about every grocery store, mundane as well as high-end, displays wedges of Manchego cheese placed temptingly near wrinkly chorizo sausages. And in case you can’t find it locally, an online store, La Tienda, sells everything you […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Beef, Cookbooks, Latin America, Middle Ages, Morocco, Spain, Spanish cooking • Tags: Al-Andalus, ArabCooking, Estremadura, Fudalat al-khiwan fi tayybat et-ta'am Wa-I-alwan, Laila Benkirane, Matt Preston, Mohamed Mezzine, Rachel Laudan, Spain, Spanish Cooking

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme … and Lavender

May 5, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

First, a pinch of etymology. The Greeks called lavender nardus after the Syrian city of Naardus, from which comes the word “spikenard.” (More on spikenard in a second.) As for our word, “lavender,” we must once again thank the Latin language for lavare, meaning, “to wash.” A member of the mint family, and cousin to rosemary, lavender can be used like rosemary in many dishes. Its blossoms form little spiked shoots sprouting flowers of many hues, not just purple. Cooking […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Cookbooks, England, Europe, Middle Ages, Middle East, Monasteries, Spain • Tags: Al-Andalus cookbook, Arab cooking, Charles Perry, Hildegard of Bingen, Lavender, Mary Magdalene, Mukhallal, Scarborough Fair, Spikenard

The Artful Pomegranate

November 5, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Guarded treasure, honeycomb partitions, Richness of flavour, Pentagonal architecture. The rind splits; seeds fall– Crimson seeds in azure bowls, Or drops of gold in dishes of enamelled bronze. –André Gide in Les Nourritures Terrestres (trans. Dorothy Bussy) Like the pomegranate itself, so ripe and bursting with seeds, the history of this berry-like fruit reveals more and more the deeper one looks into it. The myths, the legends, and the journeys of the pomegranate serve as an archetypal case of plant […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Chicken, Cooking, Poultry, Spain • Tags: Chicken, Iran, Khoresh-e Fessenjan, Pomegranates, Poultry

In Morocco (and Beyond), Flavor Principles

July 13, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Northern Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt)** According to Harva Hachten, in her Best of Regional African Cooking, “the North African housewife can choose from up to 200 different spices and herbs when she stops to replenish her supplies at a spice stall in the souks of the medinas.”[1] The guiding flavor principles in northern African cuisine include intricate spicing, particularly in Morocco, similar to the Persian manner. But flavor principles applied to North African cooking don’t begin and end […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Arab cooking, Morocco • Tags: Africa, Cooking, Cooks, Flavor Principles, Food, Morocco, North Africa, Preserved Lemons

In Morocco, Travelers’ Tales

July 1, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In the following passage, from R. B. Cunninghame Graham’s Mogreb-El-Aska (1898), Cunninghame Graham describes (in somewhat superior tones!) the spirit of communal eating in Morocco of the times (late nineteenth century):** Swani and Mohammed-el-Hosein were radiant, more especially because the Kaid had sent a sheep, which they had already slain and given to a ” master ” (maalem) to roast en barbecue. Although I personally was disappointed that we had not been able either to get an answer from the […]

Categories: Africa, Arab cooking, Morocco • Tags: Lamb, Méchoui, Morocco, North Africa, R. B. Cunninghame Graham, Sheep

Eggplant: Mezze Time

April 1, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

With this post, we continue on our journey of exploration , attempting to learn where eggplant came from and how cooks over the centuries treated it. No discussion of eggplant can ignore baba ghanouj, a dish made with puréed eggplant and tahini (sesame seed paste). According to Nawal Nasrallah, author of one of the few Iraqi cookbooks in English (Delights from the Garden of Eden), baba ghanouj means “the pampered father;” a Lebanese legend suggests that “a dutiful daughter” … […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Eggplant, Lemons, Recipes, Sesame • Tags: Arab cooking, Cooking, Eggplant, Food, Recipes, Tahini

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life