By Joel Denker
A red ceramic cooking pot with a conical lid and a tray with a handsome tea set—complete with glasses for drinking mint tea—graced the counter of the three-year-old eatery on 9th Street. Tucked amid the Ethiopian restaurants, cafes, and sports clubs in the burgeoning quarter off U Street, Taste of Marrakesh serves both short orders like Philly cheese steak and tuna subs as well as the elaborate dishes of Morocco prepared by chef Khadija Benous. In her humble kitchen, she fashions grand dishes like couscous and tagines (stews named for that captivating pot) and bakes a plethora of cookies, pastries, and biscuits.
Khadija insists on making complex dishes from scratch. Couscous, she says, should never be prepared in a microwave. The culinary artisan, who has received diplomas in French, Moroccan, and Lebanese cuisine, showed me with pride a food processor full of her homemade mayonnaise.
The Marrakesh native has decorated her walls with emblems of Moroccan culture and of Middle Eastern tradition. An antique plate with an Arabic inscription hangs next to a cloth on which is written a saying from the Koran. In one corner, an old fashioned bellows for fanning [better word?] a fire is displayed. A photograph of the courtyard of a palatial home also adorns the room. Taken at night, the picture’s luminous lanterns and dazzling water fountains evoke a luxurious North Africa.
Salah Awadallah, Khadija’s husband, a charming and gregarious Egyptian, is a convivial host. A one-time hot dog vendor, limousine driver, and music promoter, he thrives on the conviviality of his new business. He brings to the trade the insights on the behind-the-scenes world of the food industry he got working security at Dean and Deluca.
“I love different kinds of people,” Salah said. Camaraderie was a way of life in his homeland. Men spent “half their days” in coffeehouses, he pointed out. Salah is still adjusting to a land where “time” is always at a premium.
Salah has cultivated a heterogeneous group of customers. A Nigerian graduate student raised in England arrived to pick up a carryout order. An Ethiopian singer quietly eats his lunch in an upstairs dining room. Somalis come for lamb and rice as well as for spaghetti, a taste their country’s Italian rulers passed on.
One evening, my wife, Peggy, and I struck up a conversation with Salah and a friend of his, a Yemeni cabdriver. We talked about how difficult molokhia, an Egyptian vegetable resembling spinach used in soup, is to come by in Washington. Salah told a story that had us all laughing. The arrival of a shipment of the leafy item at an airport in Italy, home to many Egyptian emigres, had customs in an uproar. They had mistaken it for marijuana.
The cafe’s atmosphere encourages Muslims and non-Muslims to bridge their differences. Salah was elated when one afternoon a group of Israelis touring the States decided to venture in after looking quizzically at the menu. “We eat the same food,” Salah reminded the visitors. Another day, I talked with the Egyptian owner of a limousine company about the searing conflicts of the Middle East. Reaching out to me, clearly assuming that I was Jewish (rather than a Yankee-Jewish half-breed), he said affectionately “we are cousins.”
The Moroccan delicacies are cultural revelations. I dug into a heaping plate of couscous in which nestle tender pieces of chicken and steamed carrots, yellow squash, and zucchini. A village dish of the Mahgrib, the Arabic name for North Africa, has evolved into a more elaborate meal and has spread from its birthplace to cosmopolitan restaurants around the world.
Couscous is the name for the granules of coarsely ground hard wheat flour that have been molded into small pellets. It is also the name of the dish in which the grain is the centerpiece and a broth of vegetables—or vegetables with meat—is the accompaniment.
The Berbers, the herdsmen who traveled the region’s mountainous terrain, may have first made couscous with barley. They made a basic repast of the cereal and butter, sour milk, and dates. The Arab invaders of the Mahgrib in the 7th century likely brought durum wheat with them, according to historian Andrew Watson. The hard winter wheat was widely cultivated and the Berbers adapted it to their cooking. Couscous dishes, Watson says, began surfacing between the 11th and 12th centuries.
The women of the villages took wheat to the local mill for grinding and then painstakingly rolled and shaped the semolina into small balls. A 13th century Arabic writer described the process: “After sprinkling semolina with lightly salted water . . . you rub it gently between the palms of your hands until the semolina becomes the size of ants heads.” After the pellets were formed, they were dried in the sun, after which they could be easily stored. Some speculate that the Arabic name for the cereal, kukusu, originated from the sound the grain made as it was being molded.
Couscous preparation has been modernized. It is now processed in factories and cooked in an ingenious device called a couscousiere. Now the traditional steaming process is done in what looks like a double boiler. The couscous pellets are placed in the perforated upper pot while in the lower, the stew simmers. The steam from the broth swells the semolina and the aromas of the broth imbue it with their flavor.
I marveled at the couscouserie that rested on the top of the “Marrakesh’s” stove. I was even more impressed by Khadija’s technique, a deftness evident in the exquisitely light, moist grains, each separated from the other.
All that was missing was the traditional setting for couscous, a warm family gathering celebrating this gift of plenty. In North Africa, Sala says, “the whole family sits together” and partakes of a large bowl of couscous. Typically, the dish is enjoyed at lunchtime on Friday, a day for prayers and for rest.
My curiosity whetted, I asked Khadija about the flavors in couscous. After responding cryptically, “a lot of things,” she shared some of her secrets. Ginger, saffron, black pepper, and fresh tomatoes all lent their taste, she said.
A panoply of spices and fragrances, I discovered, defined Moroccan cooking. Kufta, a sausage-shaped ground beef kebab, had a hint of cinnamon. A cinnamon stick, one of the spices the Arab colonizers introduced to the Mahgrib, appeared in my yellow rice. Cumin, a popular Moroccan spice, gave an edge to my carrot salad. I chewed a biscuit and detected the telltale licoricey flavor of anise.
Moroccans, Salah observed, “like most time the sweet.” Sweetness plays off the savory in the bisteeya, a luxurious pie that is the crown jewel of the cuisine. While one evening Khadijah, Sala, and a friend ate take-out chicken dinners from Popeyes, I was fixated on the layered phyllo dish before me. The flaky pastry was filled with sumptuous pieces of chicken, onions, and eggs and enriched with sweetened almonds. It was crowned with a dusting of powdered sugar and cinnamon. Bisteeya, Khadijah said, was a “special” plate. It was ceremonial food, reserved for weddings, important dinners and parties, and for other festive occasions.
After that dinner, Salah and I and a regular customer from Kentucky, a carpenter helping build a nearby Ethiopian restaurant, stood outside on the front steps and schmoozed. The Kentuckian, who sipped a cappuccino, and I talked about history, the subject I teach, and one he had only come to appreciate. Somehow the conversation turned to why Greek restaurants called their thick brew “Greek coffee” and never “Turkish coffee.” Salah reminded us how much the Greeks had always despised the Turkish “pasha.” I left the “Taste of Marrakesh” that night especially satisfied.
Originally published in The InTowner: http://intowner.com/food-in-the-hood/
