What is Algerian cuisine? This is a question that I am asked often, but never really gave a clear answer for on this blog. I wanted to wait until I had a body of recipes posted. For now I'll offer an extremely condensed version of Algeria's food history.
Algerian cuisine is the most varied and diverse of North African cuisines.
It is a Mediterranean mix overlaid on a Northwest African Berber foundation.
Algerian cuisine is the most varied in terms of range of dishes and seasonings than Moroccan and Tunisian cuisines. Algeria has more Spanish, Andalusian and West African influences than Tunisia to the east. Algeria has more Ottoman, Italian, French and contemporary Arabic influences than Morocco to the west. Mauritania obviously doesn't have a Mediterranean border.
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue
1492
was the same year the Christians recaptured Granada, the last Muslim
stronghold in Al-Andalus. After more than 700 years of rule on the
Iberian peninsula the Moors were expelled back to their North African
homeland taking with them an Andalusian Hispano-Muslim cuisine. They settled largely in what is now Morocco and Western Algeria (formerly Mauretania, not to be confused with the current country of Mauritania), but made it as far as Tunisia.
Tlemcen
Tlemcen has been described as strongly resembling Granada with lots of water and lush with vegetation. Situated in Northwestern Algeria it is very close to the Moroccan border. Historically it was an important crossroads city for Mediterranean and Saharan trade. At various points in history the city was quite wealthy and like so many other major Algerian cities it was a cosmopolitan potpourri of peoples. For Jews it was the "Jerusalem of the West".
The cooking here is still very Andalusian and Medieval Arab-Persian inspired, similar to Moroccan palace cooking. Fragrant meat tagines with fruits, nuts and sweeter spices dotted with almond lozenges exemplify Tlemcenaise cuisine- the sort of labor intensive, extravagantly spiced recipes that North African cooking is renowned for.
Oran
It's just a 9 hour ferry ride from Alicante, Spain to Oran, Algeria. They say that on a clear day you can see Spain from Oran. In 1509 the Spanish captured the port of Oran. For the next 300 years Oran would change hands back and forth from the Spanish to Barbary pirates to the Ottomans.
Oran was also where Spanish settlers came with the French invasion of Algeria in 1830. The Spanish were mostly poorer peasants from the South and Catalan.
Just as any number of Spanish cookbooks are liberally sprinkled with references to Moorish influences in Andalusian cooking, Oranaise style cooking makes heavy references to Spanish influences. Andalusian and Spanish dishes such as cocas, paella, pastilla, fidwash (fideos), migas, skabetch (escabeche) and gazpacho are very Wahrani (Oran style).
Algiers The Capital
Le Corbusier's Plan for Algiers
Algiers. [Photograph]. Retrieved June 23, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-90781
In 1453 while the Moorish hold on the Iberian peninsula was on it's final legs- the Ottomans conquered Christian Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul signaling a shift in Islamic seats of power. The Ottoman westward expansion into North Africa actually began by invitation from Barbary pirates to form an alliance against the Spanish for control of shipments and ports.
Algeria recognizes Ottoman suzerainty from 1555 until the French invasion in 1830. At the time France was well behind in repaying a huge grain debt to Algeria. From it's inception the French invasion of Algeria was propelled by contradictory impulses and ambivalence.
The cooking of Algiers shows Ottoman and French influences. Dolmas, doner kebab, bechamel sauce, beignets and croquettes are some of the influences that make their way into traditional Algerian recipes. Algiers is also the capital of Algeria so there is a lot of regional blending with modern influences.
Algiers really comes into it's own with their range of pastries. Here North African pastries incorporated Turkish and French inlfuences to create another world class style. The owners of the famous Algerian pastry shop La Bague de Kenza in Paris are from Algiers.
Coffee is served Arab, Turkish or French style. Another example of how ingredients and methods were introduced in several waves by different peoples into Algeria.
The pieds noirs of Algeria created their own particular Mediterranean mix of cuisines. For example a family with a Spanish father and an Italian mother with French citizenship on Algerian soil would incorporate all these different cultural elements into their daily cooking. Cuisine Pied-Noir website
Pieds-noirs exiled to France after Algerian independence and Algerian immigrants to France would transport Algerian dishes to France. Paris and Marseille in particular have the most North African influences.
Annaba
Photo retrieved from Annaba Photos
The history of Mediterranean basin trade in North Africa begins with the Phoenicians who arrived in the first millennium BC. They weren't looking to colonize land as much as they were interested in setting up trading posts. They established anchorages along the North African coast, most notably Carthage. Carthage grew into a powerful and wealthy city state but was destroyed during the third and final Punic war against Rome. Because of it's strategic location the Romans would rebuild what they ruined, by 150 AD Carthage would once again be a populous and thriving city.
Annaba (Hippo Regius or Bone) is in the Northeastern corner of Algeria near Tunisia. The ancient empire of Numidia (202 BC - 25 BC) was west of Carthage (Tunis) and east of Mauretania (Northern Morocco and Western Algeria). The parenthetical notes refer to seats of power and not the geographic reach of empires.
Numidia was an ancient North African kingdom that eventually became at turns a client state and Roman province, the eastern Maghreb was a prosperous and fairly stable branch of the Roman empire between 1-500 AD. It's well known that North Africa was the bread basket to the Roman empire, perhaps it's lesser known that there was also a rich artistic and intellectual life during this period. This was the era of the great Saint Augustine who was born in Tagaste, Numidia (present day Souk Ahras, Algeria) and educated in Roman Carthage.
The Vandals brought an end to Roman rule in Numidia and Carthage. But they made no culinary or cultural contribution to North Africa that we know of. Neither did the Byzantines who came after.
The prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) was born in 570. Islam's swift spread is attributed to two primary methods- conquest through war and the spice trade. Why spices? The Islamic heartland straddles three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe making it central to all trade routes connecting these continents. Along with the spice trade Arabs spread their agricultural methods to North Africa, the Iberian peninsula and Sicily.
The Aghlabid dynasty that ruled (Ifriqiyah or the previous Berber dynasties of Numidia and Carthage) Tunisia and Eastern Algeria would conquer Sicily in the 800's and remain there for two centuries. To this day in Sicily the Arab/North African culinary contributions are remembered in a tradition called "cucina arabo-sicula". Sicily's annual couscous festival is a celebration of this legacy where it is also called a dish of peace and understanding bringing together peoples from the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe.
During French colonial times Italians from the Southern part of the country largely settled in Annaba and the surrounding region introducing another wave of Italian influences into the Algerian culinary lexicon.
The cooking of Annaba is influenced by Sicilian, Southern Italian and Middle Eastern Arab cuisines. The earthy, hot spicing is similar to Tunisian. The noodle and pasta dishes here run the gamut from ancient whole wheat noodles, Berber steamed semolina pasta to newer Italian commercial varieties.
It is widely accepted that semolina pasta, a cousin to couscous, is a Saracen or Berber invention. I'm making a distinction here between semolina durum wheat pasta and other types of wheat noodles that were previously known . Clifford Wright, History of Macaroni .
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