Avuncular American

Legation Courtyard Cookoff: Moroccan Street Food

For a brief moment last Friday night, our stately 19th century courtyard, entrance for generations of tricorner or top-hatted diplomats, had more the look of Jemaa el-Fna, with bissara and caliente aromas wafting around the fountain.  It was the perfect way to top off Abdelkrim Raddadi's lively presentation of his "coffee table" book, Morocco's Street Foods, published by MARSAM Edition and Exchanges, Morocco's English-language book specialists (actually, the book is in English, Arabic, and French, as was Raddadi's rapid-fire delivery).

In cooperation with the American Language Center of Tangier, we hosted a full house of foodies, people of all ages and backgrounds whose love of Moroccan delicacies was not deterred by a stormy debut to the evening.

"Delicacies," Abdelkrim Raddadi would tell us, are not the only thing that street food is about in Morocco.  Why people eat street food, its infinite variety in a country that has Arab, Berber, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English antecedents (Tangier, for a brief couple of decades in the late 1600s, was British) - the sociology of street food is Mr. Raddadi's passion.  His excitement for his subject was evident to us, and to National Geographic TV, which features his work in their show on Street Food Around the World.

And not just sociology; geography too.  Raddadi tells of how caliente started in Tangier, with its large Spanish population during the International Zone years, made its way to inland Fez, and can be found in the eastern border town of Oujda, across from Algeria.  But then the Spanish of Oran had their own version, carantica.  The wonders of chick peas...

Actually, that Abdelkrim and the Exchanges team were with us at all last weekend in Tangier was a signal honor: he should have been in Paris at the Food Television Festival, where his book was one of a dozen chosen among thousands for the final competition.

So, what is the book?  Not a cookbook; there are no recipes.  There are lots of great color action shots, and even poetry in translation - well, maybe rimes is more like it - on the subject:

They say that the mechoui of Bougmaz

Kindles a desire for more.

Food of dinners and receptions,

It is even found in the souk.

Its irresistible aroma delights the senses,

One may even sell one's clothes

For a few slivers of mechoui.

A whole sheep including its head,

This alone is worthy of a party

For it is both regal and it goes far.

It has more of a ring in the original Arabic.

That Mr. Raddadi isn't a poster boy for Weight Watchers® is a tribute to his self control after four years of research - starting in Tangier with its trademark caliente (chick pea and egg savory flan) - that took him to street corners all across the kingdom.  "Bad but tasty" isn't his judgment on a particular dish, it's more his description of the allure of the illicit: Moroccan Moms Against Street Food continue to rail against their competitors - "why are you eating that greasy stuff when I've made you this delicious tajine?"

Despite mothers' concerns, at least street food is not fast food - Raddadi is a believer in the virtues of Slow Food.  But the increasing specialization of vendors in Morocco - "you can even get ready-crushed garlic!" - means that consumers here can outsource some of the more time-consuming parts of meals and just go out and buy their hergma (roasted calves' feet).  Don't worry: much of Moroccan street food would pass the vegetarian test.

Morocco's Street Foods is on to something: this food is theatre.  Just like fish-n-chips is best out of vinegar-doused newspaper, caliente needs to be eaten on a piece of paper torn off by the street vendor.  None of this knife-and-fork stuff.

Street food in Morocco is lots of things to lots of people, and serves, as Abdelkrim Raddadi says, as a kind of GPS: "turn left at the beboush (snails) cart, then go straight 'til you get to the bissara (pea soup) stand."

We wish all book presentations could be as much fun as Abdelkrim Raddadi's, though we may have set our own bar too high by serving up the real thing.  But a good time was had by all.

Gerald Loftus; photos by Christiane Delongueville. 

Advocate for the Legation Day

Actually, yesterday February 25 was Museum Advocacy Day, something organized by the AAM, the American Alliance of Museums.  So we missed it by a day.  If you are, however, inspired to do a bit of advocacy from either your armchair or while visiting Washington D.C., you might want to bone up by reading the AAM's book "Speak Up for Museums: The AAM Guide to Advocacy."

For us, every day is Legation Advocacy Day.  We provided a handy list of actions - letters to the editor, donations-in-kind, full-blown lobbying - for readers as a kind of New Year's resolution to advocate for the Legation.  Though some stalwarts and a few newcomers have chimed in through comments or emails, we have yet to see many people actually carrying out an effective action (i.e., we haven't gotten any surplus Macs in the mail).

If the check is in the mail, well, the postman may not yet have found America Street.  We'll stay tuned, and in the meantime, your suggestions and comments are welcome, as always.  But as much as I like to read comments from readers, fellows, and board members, I would like even better being cc'd on letters to their Senators or Members of Congress.

Gerald Loftus

Kidnap Scrapbook: Letters on the Perdicaris Affair

 

Ellen Perdicarisby Ion Perdicaris, n.d., featured in Enchantment: Pictures from the Tangier American Legation Museum

Thanks to an alert reader, we've been made aware of a rare book on sale: "Archive of letters sent to his wife during the period of his capture: Ion Perdicaris."  Only $5,802 to the right bidder.  "Approximately 300 items, most autograph letters, mounted or inlaid in an album, folio (457 × 324 mm). Original full dark green roan, green watered silk doublures and endpapers, turn-ins with decorative roll all around in blind, all edges gilt. Hinges weak, spine rather worn. Very good.  Bookseller Inventory # 30719."

 

The notes accompanying the book advertisement provide a very nice summary of the Perdicaris Affair:

A contemporary assemblage of more than 300 letters of sympathy and eventually congratulation, addressed to Ellen (formerly Varley, née Rouse), wife of the Greek-born hostage Ion Hanford Perdicaris (1840–1925), the central figure in a notable kidnapping known as the Perdicaris incident. Perdicaris's Greek father had emigrated from Athens to the United States, becoming a US citizen and making a fortune as one of the organizers of the Trenton Gas Company in New Jersey. Ion lived the easy life of a playboy until the American Civil War, when the family's property in South Carolina was threatened with confiscation by the government of the Confederate States of America. In order to forestall any confiscation, Ion Perdicaris travelled to Greece to renounce his United States citizenship and acquire Greek nationality. He subsequently moved to Tangier, and fell in love with an Englishwoman, Ellen Varley, wife of the eminent telegraph engineer C. F. Varley. The Varleys divorced in 1873 and Ellen and her four children settled with Perdicaris in Tangier, in a house full of exotic animals. Fascinated by Moroccan culture, Perdicaris wrote several books on the country and became the unofficial head of Tangier's foreign community.

On 18 May 1904, Perdicaris and Ellen's elder son Cromwell were kidnapped from their home by bandits under the control of Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, an outlaw considered by many to be the rightful heir to the throne of Morocco. Several of Perdicaris's servants were injured by Raisuli's men, and Ellen was left behind alone. Shortly after leaving Tangier, Perdicaris broke his leg in a horse fall. Raisuli demanded of Sultan Abdelaziz of Morocco $70,000 ransom, safe conduct, and control of two of Morocco's wealthiest districts. During his captivity Perdicaris came to admire and befriend Raisuli, an early example of what has since become known as Stockholm syndrome. US president Theodore Roosevelt, who had succeeded to the presidency upon the assassination of William McKinley, responded to the apparent kidnap of a US citizen with a classic display of gunboat diplomacy. He quickly dispatched several warships and Marine companies, though with little idea of what US forces could achieve on such hostile foreign soil.

Secretly advised that Perdicaris had relinquished American citizenship 40 years earlier, Roosevelt brushed that aside, pointing out that Raisuli had believed Perdicaris to be a US citizen when he kidnapped him. Roosevelt succeeded in getting Britain and France to put pressure on the sultan to accept Raisuli's demands, which he agreed to do on 21 June 1904. Roosevelt's "big stick" diplomacy and his reported demand for "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead" helped him secure the presidency in his own right in a landslide victory in the election of November that year. Perdicaris and his family moved to England shortly after the incident, eventually settling in Tunbridge Wells. He died in London in 1925. The story was loosely adapted to film in the 1975 motion picture The Wind and the Lion, with Sean Connery in the role of Raisuli.

Here's a recent film (12 min. by Abdelkader Salah Haddouch) showing Raisuli's palace in  Tazrout, near Chefchaouen, where Perdicaris was held hostage.  We are fond of telling the Perdicaris story to visitors, and the Library of Congress deems the Perdicaris Affair important enough to dedicate a Chronicling America page to it.  Plenty of links to period news stories, where we learn that

The English housekeeper [phoned] the operator to inform the American Consulate... and Consul General Gummere, accompanied by guards, hastened to the scene.  Long before they arrived, the band had fled, carrying their prisoners into the mountain region...

That gives us another perspective on Mr. Gummere, galloping off to save an Amcit.

Now, does anyone want to get us this book?

Gerald Loftus

Zohra, As She Was: Photos From the Fifties

Zohra in 1952, posing at El Foulk for James McBey (photo courtesy John Dickson Photography)

Ah, don't we love the infinite possibilities of linking up with people offered by TALIMblog.  The most recent example:

I am one of James and Marguerite McBey's nieces. I happened on your blog about Zohra. It is lovely.  My mother, two sisters and I spent the summer of 1956 living next door to Marguerite and James in Gazebo, Marguerite's mother's house.  As you can imagine, it was a memorable experience. We knew Zohra and her family. I am most interested to learn that Zohra has children living in the US. Can you by any chance put us in touch with them?

Fast forward, and the McBey nieces have been in touch with Zohra's US family, thanks to relatives here in Morocco.  Small world, getting smaller.

 

Here are the girls, pictured with Zohra (in the flowered dress) at El Foulk, the McBey home on the Old Mountain outside Tangier, in 1956.  Again, many thanks to the McBey nieces Barbara, Joan, and Katie, and to John Dickson, whose Morocco portfolio contains many beautiful images of Tangier and some rarely seen interiors of El Foulk.

 

Gerald Loftus

Madrid 10, Tangier 0: Victory for All

If skydiving in a hijab presents no problems to certain intrepid Muslim women, then why should kicking a football around while wearing a headscarf make some European referees lose their cool?

These were not, however, the concerns behind the organizers of Saturday's friendly match between the women's teams of Atletico Madrid (10) and (0, ouch!)Tangier's Gazelles du Detroit.  No, the whole point - the gool, as the Spanish would say - was to serve as the backdrop for a film on Tangier's soccer madness - for Spanish football, that is.  Just try to rouse anyone away from the TV screens of Tangier's cafes when Barca and Madrid are facing off.

Spanish film maker Juan Gautier is making Tanger Gool, and what better star to choose than Tangier's own Soufia Issami, who made such an impression in the 2011 On the Edge (Sur la Planche), also shot in Tangier.

Bravo to Spain's Cervantes Institute for (a) organizing Gautier's film and the women's match and (b), for mounting a great digital photography course, which went on a Saturday field trip to cover the match.  The Legation's budding photojournalist Mohammed Jadidi (below, in a great picture by photography teacher Paco Rodriguez) was part of the scene.

Gerald Loftus

Horsemen of an Apocalypse: les Chevaux de Dieu

 

Poster: Cinebel.be

BBC News, May 16 2003:

At least 41 people have been killed and about 100 injured in suicide bomb attacks in Morocco's largest city, Casablanca, local officials say.

Ten years ago, the news of Morocco's first taste of post 9/11 terror hit the country hard, and exposed the dangers of religious extremism grafted on to extreme poverty.

Nabil Ayouch, in his film Les Chevaux de Dieu (Horses of God, official trilingual site) which had its Moroccan debut this week at Tangier's 14th annual National Film Festival, provides a searing portrait of some of the young suicide bombers and their trajectory from street urchin to urban shahid.

One of the strengths of this remarkable film is the way we come to know the group of kids who start out on the mean streets (no, mud alleys) of Sidi Moumen.

Terrorists, you will please note, were once kids, and not necessarily from those spooky madrassas in Pakistan or Afghanistan where they spend all day reciting scripture.  No, kids who play pickup football (okay, soccer).  Whose parents come from a variety of low-or-no-income situations (single mother prostitute, senile father, soldier brother, just to name a few).

Some future terrorists, through luck and/or skill, can wind up kicking the ball with Bayern Munich, and maybe avoid terrorism altogether.  Others, not quite so lucky, can get picked up by the brothers, whether in the prison recruiting grounds or when the bros "help" them get out of trouble with the police.  But this social work sometimes has a deadly mission, as in the case of the Casablanca Fourteen.  Maybe they will have to repay the favor someday with their lives.

Nabil Ayouch opened the film premiere by saying that he wanted to give a non-Hollywoodian treatment to the suicide bombers: instead of anonymous, dehumanized robots, he "provides a human face" to people who have to be counted among the victims.  Their jihadist masterminds send these poor lost souls off to their deaths with a smile, having built up their self-esteem for the one - first and last - time of their lives.

A clue to the sensibility that informs this film is the book on which it is based, Mahi BineBine's "Les etoiles de Sidi Moumen."

"In Sidi Moumen, I discovered a Morocco that I did not know, which shocked me, a sort of Calcutta,'' said the writer, who took five years ''of pain and difficult writing to put an urban nightmare into black and white." (Reading Morocco, April 25 2010).

Mahi BineBine has given the highest praise to Nabil Ayouch for his film, which doesn't reproduce the book but transforms its spirit to film.

Tahir Shah, who lives amidst another bidonville or shantytown on the fringes of Casablanca, writes of urban redevelopment plans to raze the ramshackle neighborhoods:

For six months the engineers have been toiling, building a series of plush apartment blocks... homes for the wealthy that will — soon — overlook our lives. It’s not the high rise apartments for a new wave of Casa Trash [nouveau riche] that worry me, so much as what’s going to happen to the hundreds of ordinary people who live in the bidonville.
Our maid Zenab just told me that a man with a clipboard came round and asked her questions…. how much she earns, how many people in her family have jobs, and whether she has relatives elsewhere in town. She came to work this morning and broke down sobbing, damping her eyes with the corner of her headscarf.  ’They said we will have to leave in a few months,’ she said. ‘But where will we go?’

That's a question best answered by talents such as Nabil Ayouch and Mahi BineBine.

Gerald Loftus