Khalti Z's zemetta recipe

My husband’s aunt Z. jokingly calls this dish of ground nuts, spices, and a dash of oil “zmetamine,” since she prepares this nutrient-rich snack for her hurdle-jumping, basketball court racing kids on a regular basis.

Homemade zemetta* is almost certain to materialize on the table alongside cookies and a scalding pot of mint tea whenever you visit Moroccans in their home. Eaten with a spoon, it varies widely in quality and taste depending upon who’s made it; most often those who have a bit more disposable income for nuts and spices and the like tend to offer up a more enjoyable dish.

Personally I don’t usually like zmetta. I often find it to be crumbly and dry and fairly flavorless. Sometimes, however, you happen upon a really excellent cook’s variation, and boy, are you lucky (especially since you really can’t refuse to take a few bites, out of politeness.) But watch out! If you make too much of a fuss your hostess may very likely send you home with a box full of the good stuff!

Since this particular aunt happens to be something of a gourmet, I know she’s got some of the good stuff in store, simple and delicious…

Here is khalti’s recipe, à sa façon, in translation (and approximate standard American measurements) and the original French (and metric) version:

Zmetamine!

To be made in infinite variation…

-2 cups flour I use whole wheat flour + normal flour + finely ground semolina flour. Thus, the mix is according to what you’ve got in your cupboard.

Brown in the oven until it begins to color, let’s say a golden brown.

Mom [hers, that is] used to use a frah [a flat earthenware dish] and kanoun [a brazier; also called m'jm'r] to grill in the olden days, then a frying pan and gas [stove or oven] in modern times. That’s what’s called evolution. There used to be a time when things were simpler; we ate everything raw. So there was no energy to waste, no forests to burn down, no oil to exploit…I’ll return to my cuisine…[cooking or kitchen; khalti can’t resist a little jeux de mots]

-1 cup/8 oz. oil I give myself the right to weigh liquid by the kilo and not by the liter. As far as I know, there is no term for saying “weigh by the liter,” so there!

Here, you can also allow yourself to mix oils, except olive oil. Although it’s very good for your health, its smell doesn’t agree with all skin types.

-2 cups more or less: almonds, peanuts, sesame seeds, walnuts. I’ll explain: almonds, I had some already ground, I grilled them. The rest were whole, I grilled them as they were, ground it in the mixer, adding:

-1/2 cup of sugar (I used cane sugar)

-A hint of anise, just a few grains which you will mix with the “stuff” to be browned, same for the following.

-I added the equivalent of half a teaspoon of nigella, a kind of black seed, apparently it’s good for your health, it’s sometimes used in bread and, according to some sources, used in white magic!!!!

-Just under a cup of honey. Here you can find some at every price level. So I chose the least expensive. Is it the real stuff ? The important thing is to believe that it is ! Otherwise you can substitute sugar in its place.

The ingredients are ready, there’s nothing more to do than to mix it all together and well.

Back home they use a lot of oil so that it will be more compact, a choice that is not my own!

For the sugar, you can decide according to your own taste.

Voila.

To be consumed in moderation.

I can assure you that around here we stick our nose in it (a French expression to revisit!) and don’t bring our heads back up again.

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Zmitamine!

A varier à l'infini....

-500g farine. Pour moi, farine au blé complet + farine normale + semoule fine. Par conséquent c'est selon ce que tu as dans ton placard comme farine. A griller au four jusqu'à coloration, disons dorée.

Maman grillait dans un frah et kanoun dans les temps anciens, puis poele et gaz dans les temps modernes. C'est ce que l'on appelle évolution. Il fut un temps où les choses étaient plus simples; on mangeait tout cru. Donc pas d'énergie à gaspiller, de forets à brûler, de pétrole à exploiter...je retourne à ma cuisine, hahaha, ce n’est pas drôle.

-250g huile. Je me donne le droit de peser au kilo et non au litre un liquide. D'ailleurs à ma connaissance, il n'y a pas de terme pour dire "peser en litre" et na!

Ici, tu t’autorises aussi des mélanges d’huiles, sauf l'olive. Bien qu'étant très bonne pour la santé, son parfum ne convient pas à toutes les peaux.

-a peu près 500g de:amandes, cacahouètes, sésame, noix.

Je t'explique:amandes, j'en avais en poudre, je l'ai grillée.

Le reste était entier, j'ai grillé à l'état, passé au mixer, en y mettant

-100g sucre, (j'avais du sucre de canne)

-un soupçon d'anis, à peine quelques grains que tu mélangeras au "trucs" à griller, id ce qui suit. J'ai rajouté l'équivalent d'une demie c.à.c de nigelle, sorte de graine noire, parait-il bonne pour la santé, que l'on met parfois dans le pain et, selon certaine source, utilisée aussi en magie blanche!!!!

-200g miel. Ici, il yen a à tout les prix. J'ai donc prix le moins cher. Est-ce du vrai? L’important est d'y croire! Autrement, tu mets du sucre à la place.

Les ingrédients sont prêts, il n'y a plus qu'à mélanger et bien.

Au pays on mets beaucoup d'huile pour que ce soit plus compact, un choix qui n'est pas le mien!

Pour le sucre, tu verras en fonction de ton goût.

Voilà.

A consommer avec modération.

Je peux t'avouer qu'ici dès qu'on y met le nez (expression française à revisiter!) on ne relève plus la tête.

Enjoy! B'sah!

*Also written : zoumeta, zmeta, etc.

A little literary coup de soleil in Paris

Weather forecast for Paris, France, February 7 & 8, 2009: Rainy, some fog, wear your best wool coat and bring an umbrella - unless you plan to stop by the 15th annual Maghreb des Livres book fair this weekend, where you can catch some sunshine from the literary lights of les pays ensoleillés.

This year's program is highlighting works from Morocco, but you can enjoy films, graphic novels, art books, discussions, lectures, vendor stalls and rencontres with the likes of writer Driss Chraibi, historian Charles-Robert Ageron, and ethnologist Germaine Tillion.

I loaned my ecru-colored private jet with the in-house salsa band and wardrobe full of Chanel suits to a friend this weekend, so I won't be able to attend; however, if anyone who does go happens stop by this blog, please let me know how it went!

And thanks, Joan, for the tip-off! And don't forget your umbrella!


Paris image courtesy kla067 on Flickr.

Lalla Links: Gastronomic Racism, Meditation in Sudan and Portraits of Istanbul

Too many good things out there not to do some links today:

Berlusconi and his ilk want to ban the Turkish doner kebab from Italy, preferring "authentic Italian cuisine" in favor of all that foreign stuff.

"The tomato comes from Peru and spaghetti was probably a gift from China.

"It is, though, the 'foreign' kebab that is being kicked out of Italian cities as it becomes the target of a campaign against ethnic food, backed by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

"French restaurants would be allowed. He [a politician] was unsure, though, about Sicilian cuisine. It is influenced by Arab cooking."

Please note what one commentator mentioned about a particular politician preferring the dishes from his native Veneto region.

"The Venetian cuisine that Mr. Zaia craves includes baccala (salt cod from the Baltic), cinnamon (Ceylon) and nutmeg (Australasia). The various italian cuisines are among the greatest in the world because of the food that Genoese and Venetian traders brought back from trade partners across the seas." - John, Washington, DC, USA

Perhaps now Sarkozy will make a ban on Couscous restaurants in Paris and Lyon? Talk about le bruit et l'odeur!

London Times article here; found via Racialicious.


Meanwhile, Italian architectural firm TAM Associati, is not only constructing hospitals in Sudan, but in a recognition of the need for spiritual healing as well as physical, they have proposed a serene meditation and prayer pavilion influenced by local elements and the need to be completely non-denominational.





Found via Design Maroc.

Finally, I only just found San Franciscan artist Zsaza's blog Harika and I'm loving her stories and Moleskine sketches from her new home in Istanbul:

Like the story of this man in a cafe, who was so pleased with her drawing when her waiter snatched the sketchbook from off her table to show him, that he requested a signed photocopy of it and now gives her a big smile every time he sees her. (She tells it better).

Her sketches include scenes from both sides of the Bosphorus.

Then there's the one of the indefatigable lady working in the cafe, who unwittingly posed for her one day when she stopped to eat her breakfast of bread, butter, cheese and tea.

Clearly she spends a lot of time sketching in cafes, but then again, she does call herself "a compulsive tea drinker". şerefe, Zsaza!

Couscous Western, Africa for Africans, the Jinn Fairy, and Soufis in the Desert - PCC African Film Festival's North African Films

The 19th annual PCC African Film Festival is just about to begin and I'm excited to see how many North-African related films they've got on the roster this year. They're kicking off opening night with what director Bourlem Guerdjou has tagged a "Couscous Western:" Zaina: Rider of the Atlas.

Since I'm totally into spoilers, I watched as many youtube excerpts as I could and I'm squirming to see the whole thing. Unfortunately, I have to agree with the critique I already read (I'm really not into surprises, I suppose) that the French was too perfect, too well enunciated to be realistic, much in the same way you find emperors and peasants speaking the same linguistic register, regardless of education or any sort of realistic expectations of French literature*. The critic promised that the landscape and des longs chevauchées were the real stars of the film while the acting (featuring both-sides-of-the-fence Sami Bouajila and Mohammed Majd, who plays the wise but gruff old man in almost every Moroccan film) was static.

Although I understand the filmmakers are trying to reach a larger audience, I think it would have been more exciting to do the film in Arabic (Moroccan mind you, not Egyptian or standard!) or at least a more earthy kind of French. Alas. I'm still sure I'll enjoy it.

Next up for my picks is the Iranian-Tunisian Bab'Aziz, a tale infused with the wisdom of the Sufis.
A little girl leads her blind grandfather by the hand through the deserts to a worldwide congregation of sufi adepts in a mysterious Tunisian town. Along the way he tells her the story of "The Prince who Contemplated his Soul" as they meet other pilgrims who likewise share their stories of wonder, magic and mysticism.

In one great scene (youtube, baby!) we get a roving vignette of the many different Sufi rituals from around the world, used to elevate the spirit to a higher plane through music and dance. This film's cinematography is promising and I presage a late-night group conversation over strong black coffee following the film.

Third choice, the stunningly beautiful Azur and Asmar.

I knew I would love this before I even saw it in December. I knew my husband would like it too, and he hates sitting around silently in movie theaters (this is the man notorious for turning to his friends, all raptly in the throes of the Lord of the Rings in a silent movie theater packed with people and loudly declaring "this is stupid!" shortly before he began to snore. He rarely gets invited to films anymore...) This film is so good we're actually seeing it again. We were really impressed with filmmaker Michel Ocelot's Kirikou (which was shown at the film fest a few years ago) and this magical tale doesn't disappoint.

I wanted to freeze every frame of the picture just so I could absorb all the design details, the intricate zellij tiles, the swaths of block colors layered with watercolor backgrounds.

One of the conceits I particularly enjoyed in this film was when the protagonist is pretending to be blind and is being led through the medina of Fez and his snarly, ethnocentric guide telling him about about the shabby artistry of these know-nothing heathens. Truly a case of the blind leading the blind.

I disliked that fact that it was dubbed into English, since I thought the original French would have been very eloquent and beautiful, but since it's officially marketed as a "children's film" that makes sense (read: more money for distributors). However, the big surprise was that the Arabic songs and lines were not dubbed (although they are understandable in context.) My husband translated them for me as we watched, and I realized that they truly presage the characters' destinies.

But then I was told by a friend who knows the director, who holds to a strict sense of artistic intent, who informed me that this was intentional; Ocelot wishes for the listener to appreciate the melody of the language and to seek to understand what it means for himself.

The fact that one of the strongest themes is multiculturalism, anti-ethnocentrism, and recognition of shared identities (hint hint la douce France) makes it great for kids. AND the music is by the inimitable , velvet-voiced Algerian singer/songwriter Souad Massi.

Finally, it's time for a film that turns things on their heads.

Though not North African, Africa Paradis looks like it could be either really hokey or hilariously playful.

The idea is that by the mid 21st century, African is the center for world finance, culture, power and politics. Everyone wants to come there; well-educated Europeans are turned away at the border, though they clandestinely sneak across the checkpoints only to have to grovel through bureaucratic apathy, a rising "Africa for Africans" campaign, and other travails. Written by a humorist, I have high hopes that this film will not only get us to think but also really make us laugh.

The festival is FREE and always fun. Many films feature guest speakers to give a brief lecture and respond to questions following the films, including the Algerian film "Enough/Barakat!**" about two women's budding friendship under the horrors of the Algerian civil war.

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*I once attended a translators' conference in which a New Zealander and French team of translators complained at length to a small panel of devotees (so geeky that we were actually interested) about several French publishers' unwillingness to accept a more "accurate" French translation of a dialectically rich, maori-influenced novel set in the isle of the kiwis; they had to go to a Carribean publisher, who had his own views of the richness of patois and dialects, in order to find a publisher who'd be faithful to the text!

**Whoever translated this did a disservice to the title: though the ta marbuta (or the "smiley face" ta as some like to call it :) ) is often transcribed as "at" instead of just "a" when preceding certain letters, on its own it should just be written phonetically as "a". When someone first read this to me I was momentarily confused until I realized what a stupid and simple mistake this translator made. Grr! Three Arabic grammar drills for you, my friend!