North African food in America

[Ptipois]

You're right. But my point was that, for clarity reasons, it was more helpful to prefer the geographical and cultural view over the historical usage, which is inexact and can be corrected, as is every usage, usage being no rule.

By that, I mean that it is not the same thing to refer to someone as a "North African" (for historical reasons mostly linked to France's colonial past, when it referred to this region as its "territoires d'Afrique du Nord" and the entity has remained in the French mind though it no longer exists in fact) as it is to refer to Maghreb as "North Africa" when geographically it is only a part of it.

In that context, indeed, it is true that "North African" is how the French readily call someone from Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia, but it is not how they would call a Lybian or an Egyptian. But I think that's entirely their problem, not ours. I do not think any Egyptian or Lybian would claim that, geographically, he does not live in North Africa, though he would agree that he lives in Mashriq as opposed to Maghreb. So, being aware of the cultural and historical difference between Maghreb and Mashriq, I was proposing to use those concepts instead of North Africa, for they correspond to a living reality and not a colonial strata. And once those who do not know the distinction will have understood it, everything will become clearer for everybody and then maybe we can start discussing about the respective food of those regions.

Edited September 21, 2005 by Ptipois (log)

[chefzadi]

I think that major supermarkets have to start carrying key products besides couscous and harissa in order for that cuisine to take off. We have one person in town who packages Ethiopian foods to go - they are interesting but if I don't have all the ingredients to recreate this at home, I'm going to lost interest.

We carried some African sauces for a while - beautiful packaging. But apart from the label saying "Use this over chicken", the product didn't convey a whole lot.

Doesn't it all boil down to marketing? And the Food Network? Chef! Time for your own show!!!!

I'll watch.

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Okay, take a look at my Algerian blog I'm pretty sure alot of the ingredients I've been using so far are pretty easy to find. The spices can always be ordered vial mail or online.