Algerian Food

Alright, the A-Z recipes is slowing down a bit. Have had relatives in for the last week and they seeemd to think Portland might have had more to offer than American Samoa and Angolan food. So, alas, all I made last week was Algerian.

The dish was called Couscous with Turmeric and Zucchini (login: IWMS password: wolverines)and making it was a bit of an epic journey. First off, I cut myself so badly that blood was strewn around the entire kitchen floor. So I found myself holding my finger up high in the air (above the heart!), while trying to stop my dog with my foot from helping out by lapping up the blood. But I made it upstairs, bandaged up, and returned to clean up.

Although I probably should have taken this as an omen, I continued cutting up my mountains of vegetables. The recipe took a surprisingly long time to prepare and soon an entire giant pot was filled to the brim. I put it all to cook and waited the 2 hours.

Now, the Culturegrams recipes sometimes tell you the number of servings you're preparing and sometimes do not. This was a not time and the sheer amount of food I made could have fed at least 2 Algerian villages. Theoretically, this is a good thing. Unfortunately the product was highly bland. It kind of reminded me of a squash and zuchini flavored malt-o-meal. Wife liked it even less than I and gave it a 3 on our ten-point scale. Very disappointing.

I'm not sure what could have been done to make it better. I hoped another night of soaking might add flavor, but was wrong. Tobasco helped, but still was not quite enough. Wife had it without couscous and that seemed to be a step in the right direction. Perhaps I should have just made the sweet meat, although the prunes in that recipe scared me off.

Oh, and I tried to learn a bit about Algerian history, and found it to be highly complex. They've been conquered by the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, whomever brough Islam to the North Africa (forgot), and the Ottomans. Additionally they had a pre-Hamas type election in 1991 where they democratically selected Islamic fundamentalists. The military responded with, "Naw aw, not here," and took back over. So, yes, Algerian history was not something I could get a handle on while I waited for my meal to cook. But, I do now know that Algeria is the second biggest country in Africa and 3 1/2 times the size of Texas.