How To Cook with a Country: Algerian Couscous
Couscous, Algerian-style. If you like vowels, don’t bother talking couscous with an Algerian -- or any North African individual, for that matter. The again, the topic is pretty difficult to avoid in the grand scheme of Algerian life. Algerian couscous, or ksksou in Arabic (I warned you about the vowels), has had a prominent place at the tables and in the hearts of the Algerian people even before the idea of ALgeria existed in their minds. Nationalism still a nebulous entity in the far-off future, North Africans of all ethnicities settled on steamed semolina pasta as the staple food, much like the body itself in its ability to symbolize countless concepts and ideas or be dressed-up or down by its preparation. Couscous is central to the idea of North Africa, and through the modern period, it has come to possess a critical and uniquely nationalistic undertone which, though recent in its establishment, evokes the days of a nationless Algeria. It is as ubiquitous as the baguette in cu...
