My only aim through this book is to render homage to the five senses of the reader. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, all three have the same capacity of stimulating the traveller's senses. With a gentle motion, I want to carry you through a panorama of aromas, sounds, colours, odours, images, anecdotes, customs, traditions and rituals belonging to this place.
What is undeniable is the beauty that nature has given to these countries, the richness of their cuisine and the infinite hospitality of their people. In these countries the cuisine is like the landscape: warm, polychrome, aromatic, delicate and mysterious. In contrast to what the uninitiated think, the subtle harmony of herbs, spices and odours combine delicately and without aggressiveness, to caress the palate.
Although certainly different from European cuisine, on the tables of North Africa there is no rare or unknown ingredient. The cooking is based on readily available products: vegetables and garden produce in great quantities, fruit, cereals, meat and poultry, all easy to find and to be transformed into marvels by the gifted use of spices, herbs and perfumed waters. The same ingredients combined in different ways can give infinitely varied results. North African dishes are easy to prepare and do not exclude the imagination of each person from finding expression.
In the countries of the Maghrib, two large communities - the Arabs and the Jews, have always lived as brothers. Two communities sharing the tradition of blessing and sharing the bread, the family customs, superstitions and identical ceremonies.
These traditions are based on twin gastronomies in which only the religious laws mark the differences.
The cuisine of North Africa is a generous cuisine. Generous as a mother, prodigal as the son.
Cooking is, in these countries, an act of love, a feminine act, celebrated with pleasure, with songs, good humour and the famous "youyous" - the shout of celebration - when cooking for festival days.
Here, the cuisine is a gift, abundant and nutritious as a mother. In spite of the abundance displayed on the table, at the end of the meal there you always hear: But you haven't eaten anything!
The cuisine of North Africa is voluptuous, a sensual feast. It presents its abundance in a carnival of colours, perfumes and aromas. In our land, there are as many couscous as there are villages, as many tagines as there are gardens, as many desserts as fruit trees, and as many recipes, jealously guarded, as there are families.
Our cuisine has power: it opens us and at the same time satisfies the appetite. It warms us and refreshes us. It fascinates us, captures us and, what is more surprising, cures us. The cuisine is a reflection of the peoples of North Africa. It is piquant and sweet at the same time. Salt and sugar, pepper and honey, go happily together in tandem. And at the same time it reflects the influence of the different peoples that at one time or another have inhabited the place: Berbers, Arabs, Jews, Ottomans, Italians, Spanish and French.
As the oral tradition says, cooking is learned by watching and the only weighing is done by eye.
Cuisine in North Africa is an art which transcends the mere process of preparing food. It is the art of taking time for living, the art of taking time to do what must be done and, equally important, the art of presentation.
I invite you now to pass through the door that I have opened for you, to penetrate into the world of the Maghreb, into its customs, anecdotes and recipes.
