With its recipes for fish tagines, cigars with brick leaf or even cakes made from almond paste, one might have the impression of approaching a classic Moroccan cookbook, browsing the pages of Maguy Kakon’s latest coffee table.
However, these are indeed specific recipes from Jewish families in the Oriental region that we find in « The Moroccan Oriental: Centuries of Jewish culinary art », published last November by « La Croisée des Chemins », on the initiative of the Oriental Agency. But for the Casablanca writer and graphologist, who has already written “The Jewish cuisine of Morocco from mother to daughter” (1995), Moroccan cuisine and Jewish cuisine are one and the same.
The publication of this collection of recipes crowns more than twenty years of experimentation behind the stove, but also four years of research and collection of testimonies from women from Berkane, Oujda, Debdou and many other towns and villages in the region.
But Maguy Kakon did not just transcribe what he was told and note the ingredients, since we also discovered the different Jewish traditions and religious rites of this community which, despite its migration to other cities in the kingdom, was greatly influenced by its presence in the Oriental. “Beyond the recipe, it’s a book of history. The story of an art of living, of a community,” explains the writer to HuffPost Maroc.
Through this book, Kakon seals this intangible heritage, which risks being lost over the generations and offers readers, regardless of their religion, a gourmet itinerary to (re)discover this bustling region of culture and history that is the Oriental.
HuffPost Morocco:What pushed you to write this book?
Maguy Kakon: I was lucky enough to know an old lady from Tlemcen in Algeria, who gave me her recipe book. She came to live in Berkane in the 1920s and it was she who told me about the Oriental and explained it to me region by region. This lady was called Berthe Benyounes, like the patron saint of Oujda, Sidi Yahiya Benyounes, venerated by Muslims and Jews alike. So the crossbreeding wasn’t just culinary… It was an idea that stuck in my head.
What are these recipes found in the book?
I based myself on this lady’s notebook and retraced her steps. I went to Oujda, to Berkane, to Debdou, to Figuig, and I wandered throughout the Oriental region to find his traces. I had the chance to meet natives of the region in Casablanca and even in Paris and New York. I listed everything they told me. The recipes found in the book, I report them in their authenticity, as they were told to me and as I experienced them.
source: huffpostmaghreb
