North African food in America

[chefzadi]

If it was an issue, would they use kosher meat?

The majority of moderate muslims (and the vast majority of muslims are moderate) find this acceptable. A number of articles/papers have been written about it. When halal meat is unavailable, kosher is fine.

Also quite a few NA restaurants are owned by Moroccan Jews.

Side note - completely off topic - but Steven Spielberg's mother owns one of these kosher restaurants (I believe on Pico). If you're lucky and she's around (assuming she still owns it... it's been a few years since I've been there) she'll share wonderful stories with you.

It'll be easy for me to find out. A friend of mine who is of Central American descent owns a French cafe in the area. I go occassionally to help him out when he wants to add new dishes. It would be cool to hear her stories, she must be quite the talker.

[divalasvegas]

The popular ethnic cuisines are all available from Sysco - you can buy a Chinese, Thai, Indian, Mexican restaurant over the phone and have a truck show up with everything you need to open the restaurant.

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Melkor Regarding your SYSCO comment, I'm stepping out and revealing my ignorance here: is this true? You're not kidding? I had no idea. When you say buy everything, does that include pre-prepared items or just the raw ingredients, or a mixture of both for that particular cuisine?

[divalasvegas]

One of the mistaken notions people have about Moroccan cooking is that it is highly spicy.

In conservative markets such as the one where I live the "but it's too spicy" misperception describes who most people perceive Afghani, Persian, Vietnamese, Thai, Jamaican and darn near any other cuisine that they have never tried.

On a business trip I actually convinced three of my colleagues ot join me at a Morroccan restaurant in Chicago. Had them finally convinced that it would not be "too spicy" and we'd already begun enjoying some mint tea with honey. Then the boss and a senior manager showed up and dragged us off (quite unceremoniously) to an Italian restaurant. Bummer. But very typical.

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In my experience in the U.S. phaelon56, and I'm thinking of a couple of people close to me, it's even worse than that when it comes to "too spicy." I have a friend whose husband and his parents are always complaining about not liking things too spicy. I would always tease her about this since it really limited their restaurant choices when dining out together and she's always very open to new things. Poor thing, it's always the same for her: the same couple of Chinese and Italian-American restaurants and a few middle of the road American family-style restaurants. She once told me about them going to one of their familiar haunts (Chinese) and the MIL complaining that the dish she ordered was too spicy. Well she tasted it and it wasn't spicy at all. It finally dawned on both of us that too spicy for her husband and in-laws meant ANYTHING THAT STRAYED TOO FAR FROM BASIC SALT AND PEPPER!!! This would include many of the spices found in Moroccan, Indian, Ethiopian, Middle Eastern, Thai etc. cuisines. What these people seemed to have an aversion to was actually too much flavor. I don't think there's anyway to overcome that hurdle.

[melkor]

The popular ethnic cuisines are all available from Sysco - you can buy a Chinese, Thai, Indian, Mexican restaurant over the phone and have a truck show up with everything you need to open the restaurant.

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Melkor Regarding your SYSCO comment, I'm stepping out and revealing my ignorance here: is this true? You're not kidding? I had no idea. When you say buy everything, does that include pre-prepared items or just the raw ingredients, or a mixture of both for that particular cuisine?

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From the furniture to heat-and-serve dishes. They can even come out and train your staff. Why do you think the brown sauce at thousands of 'Chinese' restaurants in strip malls across the country tastes exactly the same?

[divalasvegas]

The popular ethnic cuisines are all available from Sysco - you can buy a Chinese, Thai, Indian, Mexican restaurant over the phone and have a truck show up with everything you need to open the restaurant.

←

Melkor Regarding your SYSCO comment, I'm stepping out and revealing my ignorance here: is this true? You're not kidding? I had no idea. When you say buy everything, does that include pre-prepared items or just the raw ingredients, or a mixture of both for that particular cuisine?

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From the furniture to heat-and-serve dishes. They can even come out and train your staff. Why do you think the brown sauce at thousands of 'Chinese' restaurants in strip malls across the country tastes exactly the same?

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Euwwwww.................... Thank you for that insight, I think.

[Andrew Fenton]

This is a very interesting topic, and I don't know that I have any answers to the questions that have been raised. But it occurs to me that one way to test the hypotheses that have been offered would be to compare the status of North African restaurants in America with that of Ethiopian restaurants.

It's been my impression that Ethiopian food is pretty well represented (at least in terms of numbers of restaurants) in the US, in both medium-sized and large cities; almost certainly better than North African, and definitely better if you exclude Moroccan. I don't know the relative numbers of Ethiopians vs. North Africans in the US, but an ignorant guess would be that they're not too different. Any ignorance about spice or bias against African food would affect Ethiopian restaurants as much or more than North African. And, of course, there's no SYSCO "Ethiopian kit." So why are there more Ethiopian restaurants in the US?

[melkor]

I don't think there are more Ethiopian restaurants than North African restaurants, Moroccan restaurants certainly qualify as North African. You are no more likely to find an Ethiopian restaurant in rural Utah than you are to find a Moroccan place - but you can probably find Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food in rural Utah.

[touaregsand]

North African cuisine or at least forms of it are more familiar to people than they realize.

Couscous the staff of life in North African cuisine is a ubiquitous grocery store item. It's carried at Trader Joe's and Whole Food Market. Based on couscous sales and the new flavored ones in boxes, seems like alot of people are eating subpar couscous rather happily. I see no reason why there would be resistance to eating properly steamed couscous, even the box stuff taste 1000 times better when steamed.

Alot of fine dining menus in America have a few "North African" inspired dishes. I'm compiling a list for a food blog.

It's interesting how the term "North African" as opposed to calling it by a specific country within North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria) seems to have created more confusion here. That's the impression I get anyway.

Maybe there are more Ehtiopian restaurants than North African ones, but North African dishes have crossed over into the mainstream at the casual level and the fine dining level more than Ethiopian has.

The cuisine is very accessible, most of the dishes would appeal to a range of people and palates, Americans included.

Let's hope sysco never comes up with a "North African Kit". But something like this is so far into the future, if the interest builds to point that there is a demand for casual couscous joints outside of large urban areas, surely an enterprising chef can execute a nice franchise package.

[Andrew Fenton]

I don't think there are more Ethiopian restaurants than North African restaurants, Moroccan restaurants certainly qualify as North African.  You are no more likely to find an Ethiopian restaurant in rural Utah than you are to find a Moroccan place - but you can probably find Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food in rural Utah.

Melkor, I certainly agree that there are more Thai restaurants in the US than Ethiopian, and agree that you won't find Moroccan or Ethiopian in a small town. But I'm pretty confident that there are more Ethiopian than North African restaurants. Philadelphia has at least five Ethiopian restaurants, and two North African (both Moroccan). Seattle has like eight. There are maybe a dozen in DC. There are at least a couple in Minneapolis and one in Ann Arbor. I don't think that any of those cities are as well represented by North African cuisine, and what North African there is is Moroccan. I've lived in all these cities except DC and I've never seen a Tunisian or Algerian restaurant.

[melkor]

North African cuisine or at least forms of it are more familiar to people than they realize.

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So apparently the question of why North African food isn't more popular can be answered by saying that it is more popular.

On that note, let me know where I can find decent roast lamb and mergez in San Francisco.

[Andrew Fenton]

Maybe there are more Ehtiopian restaurants than North African ones, but North African dishes have crossed over into the mainstream at the casual level and the fine dining level more than Ethiopian has.

The cuisine is very accessible, most of the dishes would appeal to a range of people and palates, Americans included.

I agree, and that's why it's strange to me that there aren't more North African restaurants.

A note on the penetration of couscous into the American diet: I was just reading a recent issue of Gourmet, which had a "20 Years Ago" feature with a couscous recipe. They noted that at that time it was fairly difficult to get in the US, but that it's of course very common now.

[touaregsand]

North African cuisine or at least forms of it are more familiar to people than they realize.

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So apparently the question of why North African food isn't more popular can be answered by saying that it is more popular.

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I'm not sure what you mean.

I was making an observation that certain things suchs as couscous are familiar, but not thought of as necessarily being North African in origin or marketed that way.

Whole Foods makes pretty good merguez in LA. I had really good merquz at a friends house and she told me she bought it at Gelsons. There's a Tunisian place in LA where they make their own merguez, it used to be great untill they changed to beef. There are a few other places in LA. Don't know about SF.

EDIT: beef, not lamb.

Edited July 15, 2005 by touaregsand (log)

[melkor]

I don't think there are more Ethiopian restaurants than North African restaurants, Moroccan restaurants certainly qualify as North African.  You are no more likely to find an Ethiopian restaurant in rural Utah than you are to find a Moroccan place - but you can probably find Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food in rural Utah.

Melkor, I certainly agree that there are more Thai restaurants in the US than Ethiopian, and agree that you won't find Moroccan or Ethiopian in a small town. But I'm pretty confident that there are more Ethiopian than North African restaurants. Philadelphia has at least five Ethiopian restaurants, and two North African (both Moroccan). Seattle has like eight. There are maybe a dozen in DC. There are at least a couple in Minneapolis and one in Ann Arbor. I don't think that any of those cities are as well represented by North African cuisine, and what North African there is is Moroccan. I've lived in all these cities except DC and I've never seen a Tunisian or Algerian restaurant.

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Algerian and Tunisian restaurants are often hidden. My favorite Tunisian place in SF had no sign or name, the menu was made up entirely of pizza and wraps. They always had a tagine of some sort, roast lamb, and mergez, and they had couscous on a semi-regular schedule - you just had to know to ask for it. I have no explanation for why that was the case.

[touaregsand]

Algerian and Tunisian restaurants are often hidden. My favorite Tunisian place in SF had no sign or name, the menu was made up entirely of pizza and wraps. They always had a tagine of some sort, roast lamb, and mergez, and they had couscous on a semi-regular schedule - you just had to know to ask for it. I have no explanation for why that was the case.

Does one of the Algerian places have a red headed Algerian working there? On Lombard?

[melkor]

Algerian and Tunisian restaurants are often hidden. My favorite Tunisian place in SF had no sign or name, the menu was made up entirely of pizza and wraps. They always had a tagine of some sort, roast lamb, and mergez, and they had couscous on a semi-regular schedule - you just had to know to ask for it. I have no explanation for why that was the case.

Does one of the Algerian places have a red headed Algerian working there? On Lombard?

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I don't know of this red headed Algerian staffed place on Lombard - what's the cross street? I'll go check it out.

[touaregsand]

I don't know of this red headed Algerian staffed place on Lombard - what's the cross street? I'll go check it out.

Can't remember the cross street, it's down the street from Alegrias on the other side of the street. It's a pizza place, I don't know if they serve any North African dishes. We didn't ask and it's been a couple of years. Maybe they do now. I've only recently heard of these places (not that means anything, I don't exactly have a finger on the pulse of SF) that also serve a few Maghribi dishes as a side line, someone told me for immigrant cabdrivers especially.

I also found this list of North African and Middle Eastern restaurants. I haven't look through it all, but some places are described as serving both Maghribi and Mashriqi dishes, such as Al's deli. Why Al and not Ali?

[melkor]

I don't know of this red headed Algerian staffed place on Lombard - what's the cross street? I'll go check it out.

Can't remember the cross street, it's down the street from Alegrias on the other side of the street. It's a pizza place, I don't know if they serve any North African dishes. We didn't ask and it's been a couple of years. Maybe they do now. I've only recently heard of these places (not that means anything, I don't exactly have a finger on the pulse of SF) that also serve a few Maghribi dishes as a side line, someone told me for immigrant cabdrivers especially.

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The pizza place was 'Green Pizza' on Jones.

[chefzadi]

A report on Green pizza on Pim's blog.

There's a Tunisian who works there as well.

I asked our gracious host Hakim how his couscous Friday nights have been doing. He explained to us that for the remainder of Ramadan, there would be couscous every night.  His mother –on loan from his family in Tunisia- was the one doing the cooking. She also cooks the evening Ramadan meals for the nearby mosque. That was all we needed to hear, and we happily told him to bring us whatever magic his mother was conjuring up in that little kitchen.

[Pam R]

It'll be easy for me to find out.  A friend of mine who is of Central American descent owns a French cafe in the area. I go occassionally to help him out when he wants to add new dishes. It would be cool to hear her stories, she must be quite the talker.

It was called Milk and Honey - dairy only food.  She was lovely and sat with my family for about an hour telling us about going to the Oscars and a birthday party her son threw for her 

I was making an observation that certain things suchs as couscous are familiar, but not thought of as necessarily being North African in origin or marketed that way.

hmm... That's actually what I was trying to say (not well) earlier. There are things that I (and I'm sure others) think of as Israeli ... when really their origin is more likely to be in North Africa.

If you're in Canada and want mergeuz, let me know - I'll tell you where to go. My meat supplier does both lamb and beef versions - kosher. One of my Israeli customers just found out I had some and bought everything I had.. said she wasn't going to share it with her North American husband and son

Edited July 16, 2005 by Pam R (log)

[Pan]

[...]

(As a note to Pam, didn't a lot of Maghrebi Jews settle in Israel bringing the dishes of North Africa with them?

Absolutely. Israelies moved from all over the Middle East when it became a country. Because there was no Jewish country before 1948 Jews were living all over the place and gathered food ideas from wherever they had lived. [...]

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From Haaretz:

[...]About 1.2 million residents were born in the former Soviet Union, or to a father who was born in the former Soviet Union. Some 500,000 of Israel's residents claim Moroccan ancestry, 245,000 claim Iraqi ancestry, 240,000 claim Romanian ancestry and 220,000 claim Polish ancestry.[...]

That's out of a total Israeli population of 6.8 million, as of last April, so you can see that the Moroccan Jewish community there is one of the largest communities. And then there are also not a few Jews of Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan origin in Israel.

[chefzadi]

That's out of a total Israeli population of 6.8 million, as of last April, so you can see that the Moroccan Jewish community there is one of the largest communities. And then there are also not a few Jews of Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan origin in Israel.

So what's the North African food scene like in Israel?

A North African community in the States that is not as identifiable are the pied noirs (some are Jewish). I think it's very difficult to know the number of people with North African origins.

In no particular order

1. North Africans from North Africa

2. European born North Africans

3. Israeli born North Africans

4. Pied noirs (refers to former colonizers, including non-indigenous Jews)

5. Mixed. Half European and Half North African.

2, 4 and 5 are pretty 'common' if one is in certain social circles.

so on and so on.

If you're in Canada and want mergeuz, let me know - I'll tell you where to go. My meat supplier does both lamb and beef versions - kosher. One of my Israeli customers just found out I had some and bought everything I had.. said she wasn't going to share it with her North American husband and son

Thanks for the offer Pam. You know I've been to Vancouver, Canada. I have friends there. How far is Winnipeg?

Edited July 17, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[Pan]

That's out of a total Israeli population of 6.8 million, as of last April, so you can see that the Moroccan Jewish community there is one of the largest communities. And then there are also not a few Jews of Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan origin in Israel.

So what's the North African food scene like in Israel?

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Beats me! Maybe Daniel Rogov or some of our other Israeli members will have some comments.

[Pam R]

Thanks for the offer Pam. You know I've been to Vancouver, Canada. I have friends there. How far is Winnipeg? 

oh heck, it's close. Only 2232 km. (according to them)

If you look at the map, we're smack dab in the middle of the country (right above North Dakota). Umm and the Merguez actually comes from Toronto... only 2099 more km away (these are road distances... If you're flying I'm a lot closer to TO than VAN).

Apparently Calgary has several North African restaurants... you could stop on the way from VAN to WIN

Edited July 16, 2005 by Pam R (log)

[kellycolorado]

It's funny because I learned that from my in-laws side, originally from Indiana. They want all amerian food, nothing too adventurous. Also when I moved to Colorado.

Growing up in the Detroit area I was pretty oblivious to the rest of the state and midwest- We had a huge Chaldean/arabic community in my city and lots of wonderful Chaldean and Lebanese restaurants and markets within a few miles. We also had a lot of other foods like eastern european and a little bit of everything. My best friend's mom made the most amazing dolma and lamb and basmati rice and pickled vegetables and baklava and .... I always wanted to eat at her house and she always wanted to eat at mine.

We didn't have many north african arabs in the area though and so didn't have any north african places though unfortunately. This thread sure has gotten me craving something even resembling north african though.

One of the mistaken notions people have about Moroccan cooking is that it is highly spicy.

In conservative markets such as the one where I live the "but it's too spicy" misperception describes who most people perceive Afghani, Persian, Vietnamese, Thai, Jamaican and darn near any other cuisine that they have never tried.

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It finally dawned on both of us that too spicy for her husband and in-laws meant ANYTHING THAT STRAYED TOO FAR FROM BASIC SALT AND PEPPER!!! This would include many of the spices found in Moroccan, Indian, Ethiopian, Middle Eastern, Thai etc. cuisines. What these people seemed to have an aversion to was actually too much flavor. I don't think there's anyway to overcome that hurdle.

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[EdS]

Being frank, I think there are two main perceptions that the general unadventurous public has of North African restaurants:

1) They heard of someone going to one and eating with their hands.

2) They're places to go check out belly dancers.

and I'll add a more recent perception due to what seems to have been a trend a few years ago...

3) They're a place to go try out a hookah.