A Note on Couscous

Today in the Weekend Australian food writer David Herbert suggested that 'couscous is the traditional accompaniment' to Moroccan and North African food in general, but more specifically suggested it should be served alongside fish tangine, for which a recipe was placed in this week's edition.

Below is an email that I fired off to him in something of a huff immediatley after reading the article. Perhaps the writer has been informed differently; maybe the rest of North Africa or ever other parts of Morocco DOES see this fluffy grain as nothing more than a side dish, but for now, I suspect that he simply got his facts wrong. I keenly await a reply and will post it here when (or if) it arrives.

Hi David,

I was excited to see a recipe for fish tangine in this week’s Weekend Australian Magazine. I have just returned from Marrakesh where I participated in a cooking school and amongst other things, prepared a wonderful monkfish tangine. However, one of the biggest surprises I had was when the chef told us that Moroccans never eat couscous as an accompaniment to tangine - he told us that it is always a main course in itself and indeed this appeared to be the case in every restaurant we ate in during our time there.

Whenever we ordered a tangine it would be accompanied by plain, flat, chewy Moroccan bread only – not a grain of cous cous in sight. An order for cous cous was a main meal with a big hunk of chicken or other animal creating the protein part of the dish. It wasn’t possible to order it ‘plain’ or as side dish, per se.

On the other hand, in Australia, I understand that cous cous has taken on a ‘side dish’ role in the general scheme of things, so I have not an objection to it being suggested as the accompaniment to the tangine (it being quite difficult, if not impossible to source proper Morcoccan style bread here), but I was hoping to see it mentioned that this isn’t how it is used traditionally in Morocco at least, if not the rest of North Africa.

Thanks for your time. Incidentally, I’m really looking forwards to making the Cinnamon Chicken.

Regards,

Hannah Frank.