The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [154]
One day in Tunis, an acquaintance arranged for Paula to meet with a group of women in a modest private house. Paula began the session with a question: Which of you makes the most delicious couscous? All eyes turned to one of the women, famous for her couscous with raisins. As she explained how she went about preparing the dish, the other women would either nod or shake their heads in disagreement. Every so often, Paula asked them how their versions differed. A friendly argument ensued, and then the first woman continued. Paula came away with the rough outlines for three new dishes and many alternative ways of cooking them. The session ended when the man of the house came home. He was wearing his best traditional Friday Sabbath dress, a low fez, and shoes that curled to a point.
When the Oldways group left us in Tunis, we were taken under the wing of Lynn and Salah Hannachi, a generous couple whom Paula had met a few years before on her first trip to Tunisia. Lynn is from a small town in Kansas, and Salah grew up in Jendouba, in Tunisia’s northwest. They met in graduate school in the United States, where both of them earned their doctorates. Lynn teaches American studies, and Salah is a government official; his card reads, “Secrétaire d’État, auprès du Ministre de la Coopération Internationale et de l’Investissement Extérieur.” I think this means that he is a deputy minister.
Lynn and Salah had made detailed plans for nearly all of our waking hours, starting with a long drive across northern Tunisia through undulating farmland, vineyards, and olive groves to the resort town of Tabarka and then on to Jendouba, the Hannachi family seat, where Salah’s mother, Jamila Hannachi, and several of his brothers still live. At brother Rashid’s house, before we sat down to a lavish midday dinner, Mrs. Hannachi made a scrumptious flat bread filled with green onions and green peppers, garlic, sausage, spices, and sheep’s tail fat (a delicacy in many Arab countries), cooked on a ceramic griddle. I would give you the recipe, but I have not yet come close to duplicating the dough in my own kitchen. If I ever succeed, I will rename the dish. Khobs bisshham in Arabic, it means “bread with grease.”
The Hannachi clan let us disrupt their lives for several days. Cousin Faisal showed us around the beautiful Roman houses in the ruins at nearby Bulla Regia, and his wife, Mona, and her mother spent a day preparing the lamb couscous of Béja, full of nuts and dates and very sweet. The food of Béja is famous for its Berber and Moroccan influences.
Salah’s mother gave us her recipe for what she considers her finest dish; she is afraid that her version will be lost after she goes. It is called Chakhchoukha, and it consists of a thin, handmade flat bread baked on a ceramic griddle, three or four layers at a time, then torn into bite-sized pieces and eaten like pasta, surrounded by a sauce of chicken and tomatoes. The dish takes three women at least three hours to prepare.
One day Lynn took us to Les Moulins Mahjoub, an idyllic estate in the countryside an hour or so from Tunis, where olives are grown, harvested, and pressed into oil using the same traditional methods I have seen in Tuscany and in the south of France. It was December, and the picking had begun two days before; the first olives had been brought to the mill and were stored outdoors in two whitewashed cribs. In a few minutes, the year’s pressing would begin.
We stood outside the mill building and chatted in the warm morning sun with Salah Mahjoub, one of three brothers whose family has been producing olive oil since 1492, and on this property since 1899. We watched