The Call of Couscous

This grain-based staple is the basis of both sweet and savory dishes throughout Northern Africa and the cultures they've touched around the world. Anney and Lauren explore the many uses and conflicting histories of couscous.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio
and Stuff Media. I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
and today we're talking about couscous Yes, which is inspired
this whole topic idea by a recent fight between me
and my friends about what was the better side at
a Mediterranean restaurant of Eva, which I posted pictures of. Um,

(00:28):
their excellent schwarma memes. Oh yeah, they're so good. They
have gotten me through many a dragon con. Yes, And
that's where we were there during dragon Con, and we
talked about it in some episode, UM about how they're
kind of well known as maybe the schwarm episode. Yes,
it makes total sense. It makes total sense. Um. So
there are two sides, the lintels and couscous and we

(00:51):
all took sides on which was the better one, and
we even went back again so a friend who didn't
get to try them the first time could try both
of them and waits in the full pan. Yes, okay,
and lentils one, even though one person hilariously didn't try
the lentils, but she still voted for lentils principle. Yeah,
and if I had been on the couscoose side, I
would have really not like that. The guy was on

(01:12):
the lentils side, so it was all about it, um,
But we aren't talking about nils today. We're talking about
couscouse and no offense a couscoose. I love cuscoos and
it is a very different thing than lentils. Just at
this particular instance, this particular battle of suff this one
side dish versus this other side dish. Yeah, I thought
lentils was the clear winner. But I do love couscoose
and I went through a huge couscouse phase in college

(01:35):
because it was one of my mom's faves, but my
dad didn't like it, so we hardly ever ate it.
And once I had access, I went all in, perhaps
too much all in. I should have backed off. Maybe
it was I was doing a lot of a lot
of couscous based like stew dishes for a while, like
college and post college. Yeah, I was like, this is
a terrific grain. For some reason, I feel like it's

(01:56):
healthier then pasta, which is not part cularly. But yes,
more on that in a bit, absolutely, But first this
brings us to our question, goose goose, what is it? Well?
Couscous is a type of usually wheat flour grain product
that's it's sort of like a small round pasta. UM.

(02:17):
The tiny balls or grains of couscoups are are rolled
up from a type of course ground wheat flour called semolina,
which is made just sticky enough to ball up with
with water plus a little bit of salt and then
run through sieves to kind of standardize the side. You know,
you have the smaller particles fall through, and then you
can kind of roll them back up until bigger ones,
and then the balls are typically steamed until cooked. The

(02:40):
result is a light, fluffy, chewy, slightly tacky mass of
these little emberry yellow balls, which to have a nutty
and wheaty flavor makes sense and may then be served
in any number of ways. Yes, goosecoose can be a
side or a maine, or it can be a component
in soups or salads. There's a variety of options available.
Um dec an amount of grocery stores have them here

(03:01):
in the States, and a varying quality. I saw a
lot of articles debating that yes, there are fancy versions
and cheap versions around the world. It's often eaten like
a cereal or porridge on either sweet or salty with
a fresh or fermented milk, which sounds so good, I
really want to try that. Um Or is the grain
base for savory stews or desserts. UM. There's also a

(03:24):
couscous made from fermented wheat. Oh, I know so many
things anyway. In some areas UM, a dish of couscous
made with seven vegetables in particular, is part of local
New Year's celebrations. UH. Couscous is also a traditional meal
after Friday and Day prayers at some mosques UM those
areas and localities so couscous hails from UM. It is

(03:46):
a staple throughout Northern Africa, particularly the mcgreb region UM
today that encompasses the countries that northern coast of Africa
west of Egypt, specifically Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Martinia. UM.
That New Year's dish I was talking about is specifically
from the Amazi people, which are the native peoples of
northern Africa and the north parts of Western Africa. UM.

(04:08):
Amazi is a preferred term for who Europeans previously called
the Berber people. UM. The plural, by the way, is
a mazaion um which it will just come up later anyway. Um.
But yes, among Amasaian and Arabic peoples and everyone in
the region, really, um, there are a lot of cultural
and subcultural and seasonal and event based and individual ways

(04:30):
of preparing cuscus. It's it's up there with with pasta
or rice as like a foundational, hospitable, iconic, shared cultural dish.
That's a that's part of a group identity. So much
so that in Algeria, one local word for couscous just
means food or nourishment. One particularly worldwide spread spice blend

(04:55):
for couscous, though, is raz lahonut um, which usually consists
of human nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, pepper, clove, tumeric, and ginger
kind of mix in there, that sort of thing. Yeah,
And I remember that's a lot of what I was
making stews with when I was using a lot of couscous.
That was a lot of like Moroccan spice blend recipes

(05:16):
that I found, right. Yeah, One thing I didn't know
is you can buy super fancy couscouse making pots. They
can be so fancy. Okay, So these traditionally have a
bottom pot for a for water or broth that creates
the steam um in with which you might also cook
meat and or veg for the stew that you want
to serve over your couscous um. And then there's an

(05:38):
interlocking top pot that's a steam basket for the couscous
grains themselves. Um and yeah, these pots can be these
like lovely painted ceramics or like really industrial aluminum or
fancy hammered copper. I I need to I just want
to look at some. I don't need one because I
don't make enough couscouse, but I want to just enjoy admire. Yes,

(06:00):
oh gosh, um, yeah, it's it's weird, like, especially in
the States, couscous is so often bought, pre made and
dried as a sort of like instant or low fuss product. Um,
similar to dry pastas, but even lower fuss than that,
I think. Um, But yeah, it can certainly be made
by hand, and according to fans of the product, you
absolutely should. Um. There's an article in Food and Wine
that described it as the difference between like buying shelf

(06:22):
stable bread and baking your own bread at home, which
is a dramatic difference very much. Um. You can also
do so in batches and dry some for cooking later. True. Yeah, Um,
those pots, I oh man, I loved, I love the
words involved in this episode. Um, those pots are called
because cusier's in French. That's great, that's so good speaking

(06:48):
of words. Um, the etymology of couscous is a little
bit twisty. Um. So okay. There are a couple related
words from different languages in the region. There's the Arabic
cus cussa, which is the verb for to m pound small,
And there's an Emissi language word um sex sue, which
means like well rolled or formed. And either of those

(07:10):
words might have led to the atamanopeia kiss kiss for
the sound that the balls of couscous make when they're
being sieved um, which might have led to the name
for the product being couscous, and also for the steam
pot that they're cooked in, which is cuscus in Arabic.
Lots of options, there are so many options. History Mystery

(07:33):
Etymology Edition. Yes, the Hebrew word for Israeli couscous translates
to little crumbles. Also a propos accurate m oh and uh.
And I wanted to say a quick word about some
molina flower um. It's made from the starchy insides of
grains of a particular species of wheat called Durham wheat.

(07:55):
It's the same stuff that's used to make pasta, and
it can either be ground more or less coarsely, but
but often appears um more more like a fine corn
meal than what Americans would typically consider the texture of
a wheat flour to be. Um. It's only about five
to eight percent of the world's wheat grown. H Yeah,
relatively small amount. Um. Couscous can be made with other grains,

(08:18):
though sometimes corn is used in Brazil, a millet or
barley or cassava maybe used in different parts of Africa.
What about the nutrition, Well, umu couscoos by itself is
mostly carbs. There's a little bit of protein in there
from the grain, and some fat is usually used in
the making of it. It's got a lot of selenium um.

(08:38):
It's a great base for other foods because it will
help fill you up, but it won't particularly keep you going.
Oh and that golden color um. That golden color of
cuscoos comes from our old friend carrotinoids, which also make
carrots and cultured butter. Yellow m hmm, what do you know,
We do have some numbers, absolutely, so okay, um kuscus

(09:00):
and pasta markets are usually reported together. Um, the pasta
part does dominate, but globally, couscous is expected to be
a six billion dollar a year market by look at you, couscous. Yeah,
both sides are growing. You know. They're easy to throw
into the base of an inexpensive meal, and folks these
days appreciate that. Yes, true, couscous is huge in France.

(09:20):
It's on so many Parisian menus more and why in
the history segment. A survey in a French magazine in
two thousand eleven indicated that it is the third favorite
dish in France as a whole, and the first favorite
in Eastern France. In the US, cuscus has become more
popular as a fascination with the Mediterranean diet has grown,
along with vegetarianism and in general, a desire for more

(09:44):
healthy food or food that we perceive as more healthy. Anyway,
we're very susceptible to marking. We humans marketing, marking and
marketing either marking as a target for marketing. Oh yes,
there you um m hm. In some regions, couscous has
a symbolic and religious meaning. Muslim women, prepared cuscose is

(10:06):
part of a celebratory family get togethers for burst for
wedding feast, and it's often eaten at the end of Ramadan.
Because of this, couscoose is associated with fidelity, solidarity, fertility, abundance,
and God's blessing. Women who make cuscoose are expected to
make an invocation and talk about positive things like prosperity
and make religious conversation some areas, Yeah, and we do

(10:28):
have some history for you here, as you might suspect.
But first, as you might suspect, we have a quick
break for a word from our sponsor. And we're back.
Thank you sponsored. And yes, we're back with another controversial

(10:49):
history segment. Yes, yes, buckle up, everybody. A lot of
regions like to claim ownership over couscous, particularly in North Africa.
A lot of countries do. However, some historians suggests that
the ancient Romans may haven't been at it back when
they controlled the area and planted wheat there. I don't

(11:10):
I don't think that's it. No, the amasion, we're making
it by two eight one or that's according to one historian, yeah,
based on descriptions of pots that resemble today's cuscoos vessels
found in tombs from the region during that era. Another

(11:31):
historian claims couscoose wasn't really a thing until sometime between
the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Yeah. The thirteenth or fourteenth
century was when it started popping up in Arabic cookbooks,
which was a few hundred years after Arabic people's began
invading and populating the region. Um Atomology suggests that the
indigenous a Masion were making it before the Arabs got there.

(11:54):
Whatever the case, it was a very popular dish in
this region, quickly spread to neighboring areas the Middle East
and Sub Saharan Africa. The thirteenth century is when the
Amasian introduced the Iberian Peninsula to couscoose, where it was
quickly adopted and disseminated. This influence spread to Suphardic Jews,
who made it their own and took it with them
two countries that they fled to for asylum after they

(12:16):
were largely forced out of the Iberian Peninsula. Hence the
modern day popularity of couscouos in Israel. To cookbooks from
this time period featured cuscous recipes. An anonymous North African
cookbook from the thirteenth century written by Aleppo, also had
a recipe for something resembling couscous. A Syrian historian and
active at the time, made four references to cuscoose in

(12:38):
his works. Cuscoose was a popular choice among the Marisco's
as well former Muslims in Spain who had been baptized
and accepted into Christianity, usually who had been coerced into
doing so, often with death threats. After practicing Islam was
banned in that country at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Many were expelled and cuscoos got tied up in all

(12:59):
of this mess. Eating couscous could earn you a prosecution
from the Inquisition yep. Couscoose made its way to Turkey
by the sixteenth century. Around this time, Portuguese royalty and
nobility kept eating African influenced couscous. The seventeenth century Spanish
court cookbook with a couscous recipe probably had to do
with the author's Portuguese heritage. When it comes to Italy's couscouso,

(13:24):
a popular Sicilian dish typically served alongside fish too, or
maybe even alongside a dessert. Historians think it could go
back to eight seven to one thousand and sixty three CE,
the Muslim period, or when the Sephardic jew settled there
towards the end of the fifteenth century. By the sixteenth century,
couscouse made it to Brazil, introduced in part by the

(13:45):
influence of the Portuguese and in part by arriving and
slave people from West Africa. And from what I read,
there are two types of couscous in Brazil. Northern frequently
eaten for breakfast, a steam putting of sugar, topioca flour
and coconut milk, or Southern steam cake shaped corn flour
with spices, vegetables and chicken or fish. Frenchman from Sois

(14:07):
Robel wrote about couscous in his fifteen forty two novel
Gargantua Yes, and by the mid eighteen hundreds, large scale
couscousse mills were operating in places like Ferrero Algiers and
industrializing production. Meanwhile, France was doing a bunch of colonizing
in North Africa in the eighteen and early nineteen hundreds

(14:30):
UM and they were sticking around would not be totally
overthrown until the nineteen sixties. Yes, and this kind of
brings us to what we're talking about in the beginning
of why cous such a thing in France? Yes, Okay.
In the nineteen fifties, experts from French influenced Morocco, Algeria
and Tunisia also known as mcgrib started settling in France,

(14:51):
going on to become the largest immigrant group in that country.
And of course they brought their cuisines with him, and
of course some of them opened restaurants. Some of those
restaurants were up scale. For instance, you could have the
grand Dame of Moroccan cuisine in Paris, Fatima Hall, a
chef and cookbook author who opened a restaurant called Mansouria
in and from what I understand, people just know about

(15:15):
this place. Um. It was a white tablecloth Moroccan restaurant
that attracted a lot of celebrities and politicians for her recipes.
She went to Morocco, devoting years to interviewing women and
a cast of female cooks that is quickly vanishing. She
imbued her restaurants with her feminism, hiring only women. She
believed that quote, A dish exists to heal each one

(15:36):
of our woes, regardless of religious or political disputes. People
can communicate when they share a meal, and this was
something that she lived by. She spoke at a two
thousand one conference in Israel called the Cuisine of Connections
and spearheaded the interfaith cous coust for Peace quote. What
is important is to hear the stories that the dish,
the produce, the techniques have to tell us. I like

(15:58):
to think of myself as an year that can hear
when cuisine whispers. She has so many good quotes. I
was like, any cannot make this whole episode quotes from her.
Maybe future episode I do a profile on her. Yes,
I would be so. In simultaneously, we see the birth

(16:19):
of Israeli couscouse. When the Jews fled Eastern Europe for
Israel introdes in the nineteen fifties, the then Israeli Prime
Minister David Ben Gurion was desperately searching for a cheap,
easy to mass produce grain alternative to rice. While the
vaguely rice shape noodles called petite team here in the
States called Israeli cuscose. People sometimes called them Ben Gurion's rice.

(16:42):
When rice was once again readily available, Israeli cust goose
became more pearl like in shape. And I think that's
what I'm more familiar with in my personal experience. Yes,
I think that that's the only type that I've seen. Um,
it's apparently mostly a children's food there, and like folks
produce therefore fun shapes like hearts and stuff ours. Um,
y'all write in, But yeah, that the general Internet consensus

(17:05):
is that it is not a like fancy food over
there the way that it has been adopted as over here. Um,
it's more like a like an inexpensive staple and like
a semi nostalgic reminder of lean times and comfort food
in the past. And then another story goes that Israeli
couscouse didn't make it in the US until the nineteen nineties.

(17:28):
Mika's Sharon, and Israeli chef and cookbook author living in
New York, had Don pinta Bona, an American chef and
cookbook author, over for dinner. Sharon served Asraeli cous goose
at the dinner, and Pintabonna started serving it in his
New York based restaurant and then spread from there. The
rest is fancy restaurant history. True, none of those harder

(17:49):
star shapes though, no bummer. In two thousand seven, a
Franco Tunisian film came out called, in translation, the Secret
of the grain Um, referring to couscous Um. It's a
story about a Tunisian immigrant family living in France. Yeah.
Um as in an experiment that simulated a mission to

(18:10):
Mars with six volunteers testing all sorts of technologies and
like living situations for four months in this special station
that was built out in Hawaii. UM it was reported
that the volunteers loved their couscous option. They brought twenty
five pounds and apparently went through it in a flash.
Alright right in couscous had a viral moment, a particularly

(18:36):
viral Internet moment. Um science communicator Steve Mold used a
stringed bow drawn across the edge of a large metal
plate to demonstrate how different parts of a solid object
will vibrate or not when when sound waves interact with
that solid object. And basically what's happening here is that
like a flat surface is vibrated at residence Um, different

(18:59):
parts of it vibrate in opposite directions, with the borders
between those regions UM where I think the waves cancel out,
being these these lines of zero vibration in between these
vibrating areas UM. So a spell of couscous across the
surface of the plate aligned itself into those calm areas UM,
which form a type of geometric figure called a Chiladini figure,

(19:23):
after the early nineteenth century scientist who we think is
the first person to have noticed this. So if you've
ever seen like sandercuscus on a on a big old
square plate of glass or metal, yeah, that's what's going on.
You know, couscous gotta get involved in I love it UM.

(19:44):
And then UH. This year, on March twenty nine nine,
couscous was submitted for consideration UM for addition to the
UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity UM. UH
specifically quote knowledge, know how and practices related to the
production and consumption of couscous. Ambassadors got together from Algeria,

(20:08):
Morocco and Tunisia and Mauritania UM and put it forward
jointly for the cycle of decision making. So we'll hear
about that. Keep you posted, we will sit on the
edge of our seats. Gosh, I hope it gets in there.
I hope so too. I would be mad if it didn't.
I don't see why not. But you know, we've seen
are here in the US are snack debates. Yeah. I

(20:31):
was looking through UNESCO's archives and there's already one entry
in there on on these lists for a pilgrimage through
a certain area, and and part of the the cultural
rights of the pilgrimage are are making are the making
of couscous. So I can't imagine that it wouldn't be
in there, but it wouldn't be decided to be put
in there. Well, what anyone that is involved in the

(20:57):
making of this decision is listening for once, and he
is on team Couscouse. I am on couscouse, and when
we do lentils, will be on team Lentils. But I
can be on both sides. You can. I can bridge this,
you can. That's what cous goose all about, Yes, and lentils. Yeah,
food and food in general. I guess that's sort of

(21:18):
way maybe why we make this show. Yeah, look where
we've come all. My heart's doing a thing, hopefully a
good thing hangers crossed. Well, while we figured that out,
we're going to take one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and then when we will be
back with a little bit of listener mail and we're back.

(21:49):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with mail.
I don't know how to make the couscoose couse. I
would have been hard to do though, probably just freaked
someone out. I'm sorry, probably, but when it can't be edited, yeah,

(22:13):
this is all live people. Oh gosh, no, it's not okay,
Allison wrote. I spent a number of years of my
adult life thinking I was immune to onions making me cry.
I've never had more than a slight irritation when chopping onions.
Then one day my eyes started burning horribly and watering.
I couldn't figure out why until I realized that I

(22:33):
was wearing glasses instead of contacts that day. Since then,
there have been a number of times when I had
inadvertently started chopping onions while wearing glasses, with painful results.
This should be unlikely, since I tend to wear contacts
at least six days a week, but I have now
learned to plan ahead on days when I'm using onions
in an inner recipee to wear contacts that day. Just
a tip for anyone who might wear contacts. And she's

(22:55):
not the only person who wrote in about this. Oh
that's great, several people did so. I guess I guess
it's a thing. It's some kind of barrier. I don't know. Sure, yeah, onion.
You know when in Magic School of Us and it
shows like those little yellow squigglies and it's supposed to
represent something in the air. It's not just me. I'm

(23:16):
not making that up right, I'm sure you're not. I
don't specifically remember what the heck you're talking about, but
I believe you. And also I guess it would make
sense that, um that you know, it's something about the
way that the contact interacts with the like liquid coating
of your that that stays on your eyeball. You're like
tear film. Um yeah, so I don't know. Oh now

(23:38):
I want to go look up more stuff about tear films.
They're really gross and terrific. The surface of your eyeball
is real weird, y'all, it is. I'm torn if I
want to know more or not. You got a little
bit sad there, Yeah, yeah, Oh, Also, while I was
doing recent research, I learned that um at specific types

(24:01):
of Dahlia related onions um like Maui onions in particular,
have way less sulfur than most other types of onions,
so they're a little bit sweeter and less like pikant um,
and that might lower the like little factor. Yeah, I
feel like it does. Every time I cut open an onion,

(24:23):
I forget about the thing and then it's too late.
I'm always so mad about it. Oh damn it. It's
the one benefit of not being able to eat onions.
I mean, I'm kind of impressed by it. Tho. It's
one of those things where I'm annoyed and then I
have that moment of like, you've got me good. Um

(24:44):
clear wrote, the biggest food waste culprit in my two
person household has always been letting fresh ingredients are leftovers
go bad before getting around too cooking or eating them.
The problem was that I would be feeling highly aspirational
while at the grocery store plant makes some big fancy
meal and come home with a bunch of fresh ingredients,
only to not be feeling it when dinner time came
around and resort to easier fair gosh, I feel you

(25:08):
umque the sad violin for the sad bunch of carrots
languishing in the bottom drawer of the fridge. The other
problem came when I did make a big batch of
something and then couldn't manage to eat it all before
it went bad. I know, I know, these are the
very definition of first world problems. But in the last
year or so, I've started using the heck out of
my freezer in a new way, and it's made a

(25:29):
huge difference. Using a muffin tin and a set of
silicone muffin liners, I freeze most things we make shortly
after cooking them. Once frozen through, I popped the muffin
sized cubes out of the liners and store them in
large freezer bags. Side note, I reused the freezer bags
as much as possible, but I'm still working on a
greener option that doesn't rely on plastic packaging. This way,

(25:50):
the cooking inspiration doesn't have to coincide with dinner time.
There are no worries about leftovers going bad. Plus, the
little cubes make it really easy to heat up one
or two servings at a time. The only downside is
that we're starting to run out of freezer space, and
I live in terror of the day that the power
goes out and everything melts. Here are some of the
things I've had success freezing this way. Soups, So many soups.

(26:13):
We have five different soups to choose from any given time. Curries,
cooked beans, we fried beans and lentils, rattic tuie cooked rice,
quinoa and other grains, mashed potatoes, whipping cream and milk
for future use in recipes. Frozen in the pre measured
quarter cut portions. We don't drink milk on the day
to day, but it's great to have on hand for baking, etcetera,
bread dough and pizza dough. Anyway. I know preserving by

(26:36):
freezing is no new revelation, but using the muffin tin
method has been a real game changer for us. Hope
it helps someone else tackle their food waste problem as well.
I love it. I I've done something similar to this
and it does really help, having like the pre I
know how much this is kind of portion sizes um,
but I'm inspired, inspired to try more. Yeah. One of

(27:00):
my favorite things is uh, if I'm baking and a
recipe calls for only an egg white or only an
egg yoke. Um. Then I'll freeze the extra bits in
the freezer, um in little tupper wares and as opposed
to freezing them in the microwave. Um, and uh, and
just label them with how much it is and yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm I'm a single lady. So the problem I have

(27:21):
a lot is a lot of stuff doesn't come in
single human sizes. No. Yeah, So the thing about milk
is a great one because I can never have milk.
I will never drink it before it goes bad. But
now I could. Yeah, So thank you. Thanks to both
of you for writing in. If you would like to
write to us, you can. Our email is Hello at

(27:43):
savorpod dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. All at savor Pod.
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is a
production of I Heart Radio and Stuff Media. For more
podcast from my Heart Radio, you can go to the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super

(28:04):
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and I hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.