Algeria
The couscous heartland, where French bakeries, Ottoman pastries and Berber grains all end up on one table.
On a Friday the whole house steams. A tiered pot — the couscoussier — sighs on the stove while the grains of couscous are rubbed by hand and lifted again and again over a broth of lamb, chickpeas and softened vegetables. It is the meal the week is built around, and it arrives at the table in a mountain, spooned out until nobody can move.
Beyond it, Algeria eats its history. The Ottomans left flaky bourek and syrup-soaked sweets; a century and a half of France left baguettes and a quiet wine trade; the Amazigh interior keeps the grains and the slow stews. Ramadan opens each night with chorba frik, a soup thick with roasted green wheat, and the celebration table brings rechta, hand-rolled noodles in a pale chicken broth. Finish the way the Sahara does — mint tea poured from a height until it foams, beside a diamond of makroud, semolina and dates fried and rolled in honey.
- Couscous
- Chorba frik (roasted-wheat soup)
- Rechta (hand-rolled noodles in broth)
- Mhadjeb (stuffed semolina flatbread)
- Mechoui (charcoal-roasted lamb)
- Makroud (date-semolina pastry)
- Qalb el-louz (almond-semolina cake)
