CHAPTER II.
KUSCOUSSOO.
Two women sat in front grinding, and as they proceeded filled the flour into a basket. My hostess, seated on the ground, had in her lap a round wooden tray three feet in diameter, the edge resting on the round. The flour-basket was on the right hand, a jar of water on the left. She first took a handful of flour, and dusted it into the tray, then, dipping both hands in the water, passed them through it, and so continued dusting and dipping and then making sweeps right and left through the growing mass, which gradually shaped itself into small grains. The fingers passing quickly and lightly, through and over it, the little moistened particles were augmented from the dry flour, and new ones formed. The art consists in causing it to granulate, and in preventing it from clotting. Each grain receives with its several coatings pressure and manipulation. We are all familiar with the change of substance produced by working crumbs of bread between the fingers; and in some analogous change appears to consist the secret of this dish.
The fact that the tray was sufficiently full, was notified to me by a smart nudge of the elbow. It was then brought upon an even keel, and she dashed away amongst it with both hands in a fine style: it was then thrown into a sieve of pierced sheepskin; and, shaken and tossed, the smaller grains passed through below, the larger were brushed away from the top: the size, which varies, was, in this case, about that of a large pin’s head. The operation was now completed, and it came forth a grain reconstructed from the flour by a process which rendered it fit for food, without fermentation, and almost without firing. From the sieve it is turned into a conical basket of palmetto leaves and placed on the top of one of the long-necked jars boiling on the fire. In a quarter of an hour it is cooked, or rather heated. It is curious to find steam employed, in probably the most ancient of made-dishes.
In this simple form, or with buttermilk, kuscoussoo constitutes the common food of the people. Fowls or meat, when used, are stewed in the pot over which it is steamed: the gravy is poured over it, and the meat or fowl perched on the top. In these cases, it is turned of course out of the basket into an earthen dish. Gideon in his cookery used a basket and a dish.
A still more remarkable operation is that of eating it. The Moor gets his kuscoussoo into his mouth without the aid of a spoon; yet neither does he drop it, nor does he poke in the plate to catch greasy grains, nor smear one hair of his moustache. He beats the chopsticks with the knowing jerk of the South Sea islanders. A monkey only spills his kuscoussoo. With the points of the fingers of the right hand a portion of the grains is drawn towards the side of the dish. It is fingered as the keys of a pianoforte till it gathers together; it is then taken up into the hand, shaken, pressed till it adheres, moulded till it becomes a ball; tossed up and worked till it is perfect, and then shot by the thumb, like a marble, into the open mouth.[258] Eaten otherwise it is no longer kuscoussoo, and the spoon-feeding Frank may live upon it for twenty years, and never know what it is that he is eating.[259]
Dr. Shaw, who lived so long at Algiers and travelled all over Barbary, has remarked—but not accurately—these peculiarities. He calls the ball Hamsa, mistaking cause for effect. The name of the ball is cora. Hamsa is a slang term for hand, corresponding with our word fives, and its dexterity being peculiarly exhibited in this operation, they may have jocularly answered his questions about it with that word.
Marmol, a Christian captive, entertains great respect for kuscoussoo, but Leo Africanus, a Moor of Grenada, a Mussulman and Prince of the Land, thus reviles it. “In winter they have sodden flesh with a kind of meat called Cuscusu, which being made of a lump of dough, is set upon the fire in certain vessels full of holes, and afterwards is tempered with butter and pottage. The said cuscusu is set before them all in one platter only, whereon gentlemen as well as others take it not with spoons, but with their claws five (Hamsa.) The meat and pottage is put all in one dish, out of which every one raketh with his greasy fists what he thinks good. You shall never see knife upon the table, but they tear and greedily devour their meat like hungry dogs. Neither doth any of them desire to drink before he hath well stuffed his paunch: another will sup of a cup of cold water as big as a milk bowl.”
M. Roche, who had the advantage of Leo by a double apostacy, used his proficiency in the opposite sense, and won the day in his late coup de main, by his dexterity in making and projecting coras. Kuscoussoo with other food was put upon a table for him; knives, forks, and spoons were laid out; but he seized the kuskas or kuscoussoo dish, squatted down with it on the floor, and turned up the sleeve of his uniform, observing, “This is the way we eat kuscoussoo.” That other extraordinary adventurer, Ali Bey, who was sent by the Prince of Peace with the scheme of revolutionizing Morocco, until the Spanish forces should be ready to land to take possession of it, was equally expert—in fact, it was a sine quâ non of admission into society.
Vermicelli and macaroni are derived from kuscoussoo. They are both in use in Morocco. Vermicelli is simply the grains of the kuscoussoo rolled long; it is then called spauria. The macaroni is served as a long roll, coiled like a rope, on a large plate. It is called Fidaoush. The Spanish name for macaroni is fidaos, Fideh, the Greek φιδή.
But the Moors are not ignorant of the art of making bread. On the contrary, they abound in varieties, and have particular kinds for particular seasons. The Spaniards have evidently derived from them their manner of baking, in which the dough is most severely handled, and then, but very slightly, raised or baked. Their bread is something between biscuit and bread: those who have not eaten it in Andalusia, and particularly at Seville, do not know what bread is.