The Little-known Cuisine of Spain's Moroccan Jews

המטבח הלא מוכר של יהודי מרוקו הספרדים

Jews of Spanish descent from northern Morocco still adhere to their gastronomic heritage, faithfully preserving a tremendous affection for sweets – including dishes most think of as savory.

the couscous into a ceramic bowl festooned with an ornamental pattern of castle turrets and flowers. Her husband’s family brought this nearly 200-year-old antique bowl with them when they made aliyah in the early 1960s from Tetouan, Morocco. Around the white grains she arranges, like a string of pearls, chickpeas that have been cooked in a delicate chicken stock without herbs and spices. Then comes the crowning glory – pumpkin, onions, dried plums and almonds that were coated in sugar to absorb their liquid overnight and then cooked in their own syrup. The result, a spectacular feast for the eye and the palate, recalls grand dishes from medieval Spanish and Arabic cookbooks. The white mountain is topped with a wreath of caramelized onions, darkened plums, sugared almonds and a pale red pumpkin marmalade that almost seems to sparkle.

The couscous of the Jews of Tetouan, the main Jewish community in Spanish Morocco, is called couscous con hambriya – from the Arabic hamra (“red”). The Jews of northern Morocco, the area that from 1912 was under Spanish control, are not the only ones who make sweet couscous. Other versions can be found in the cuisines of communities from southern Morocco. But for the Jews of northern Morocco – who came from Tetouan, Tangier, Chaouen and other cities in the area next to the Strait of Gibraltar – couscous is always a sweet dish. “When I came to Israel and saw people were eating savory couscous I almost fainted,”

The name of the dish derives from Haketia, an ancient and nearly extinct language. “Haketia is a special regional Spanish-Jewish dialect that’s a mixture of Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic,” says Dr. Nina Pinto-Abecasis, Rachel’s daughter, who has dedicated herself to preserving the language and researching the daily life of the Jewish communities from Spanish Morocco. “No one can say for sure when this language – which is only spoken and not written – was the main language of the Jews of northern Morocco, but scholars believe it first came into being in Spain prior to the expulsion in the 15th century, and developed further in northern Morocco upon the encounter between the Jews who had lived there from ancient times, the Jews who arrived after the expulsion, and the local population.

“In my parents’ generation, it was considered a low-class language that wasn’t respectable to speak. It can still be found in slang expressions and in certain casual terms for people and things, and I’m trying to trace its remnants and the places where it is still in use. One place where it still takes hold is in culinary terms, in the names of dishes that are still popular among people of the community.”

A dessert paradise

                         

In Israel, Jewish-Spanish-Moroccan culture is not very well known. The immigrants from the Jewish communities of Spanish Morocco were automatically labeled as an inseparable part of the Moroccan aliyah in general, even though back in Morocco they adhered to the Spanish culture and adopted a different lifestyle from the type that was characteristic of the culture of Jews in southern Morocco. In Morocco, the northern Jews were considered insular, and even today – whether because of old customs or the lack of cultural understanding they experienced in Israel – first and second-generation members of the community mostly prefer to stick to their own circle.

“To this day,” says Nina, “all my parents’ friends are people who came from Tetouan and surrounding cities. They call their WhatsApp group “The Tetouans” and the common perception about Jews from this community is that they are very modest and not extroverted at all. For example, when it comes to eating, the Jews from the north adopted the Spanish custom of going out to eat with friends and didn’t have a strong custom of hosting people at home, as is the norm in the south. Southern Moroccan Jews have a folk saying that basically says the northern Jews don’t show a guest proper hospitality at a meal, they just put a candy in his mouth to sweeten the taste. This is emblematic of the difference in hospitality customs, but it also says something about Tetouan cuisine, in which sweetness is very dominant.”

“We suffer from a split personality between Morocco and Spain,” announces Rachel as she continues cooking. After the sweet couscous, which was originally reserved for holidays and special occasions, she makes naranja, a wonderful salad of celery and oranges; ensalada cocha, a cooked pepper salad; and pescado en charmila, a marinated fish very similar to the more familiar southern Moroccan version. Then it’s time for the huevos al nido (“Eggs in the Nest”). All the names are poetic and picturesque, and set the mouth watering even before the finished version appears on the plate.

Speaking of modesty, the lovely, good-natured cook who is hosting us laughingly commands the photographer: “Absolutely no pictures of me!” Rachel goes on to explain: “Every morning I put on makeup, get dressed nicely and feel like the elegant young lady that I am, and then I look in the mirror and can’t comprehend who this older woman is that I see. My brother lives in Venezuela. There’s a large community there that still preserves the Tetouan language and culture, and when we talk on Skype I only let him see the tip of my earlobe, which he knows better than my face at this point. I don’t want my picture taken.”

She shows us how to make pastelitos de patata, meat patties that are coated with mashed potatoes and then fried. We talk about gazpacho and the traditional paella, both common dishes in Tetouan Jewish cuisine. And then at last we arrive at this cuisine’s vast array of desserts.

“This paradise is hard to describe,” says Pinto, recalling the desserts of her childhood. When her family left Tetouan, the city had a population of 80,000 (8,000 Jews, 20,000 Christians and the rest Muslims). At the Alliance school they attended (the first Alliance school opened in Tetouan in 1860), she and her classmates learned to speak Spanish, French, Arabic, Hebrew and English – and she is still fluent in all of them. “All the cakes and desserts were based either on lemon crème, almond crème or vanilla crème. They weren’t heavy desserts based on butter and cream, but light and delicate desserts. Every Saturday night we would go to one of the pastry shops in town and bring home the most incredible desserts.”

The famous Spanish flan is part of the community’s dessert heritage, as is the tocino del cielo (literally “heavenly bacon” – named for the splendid amber-orange color of the custard). This sweet flan, based on egg yolks and sugar syrup (in the traditional Spanish flan, milk is used), originated in the monasteries of the wine-producing regions of southern Spain as a solution for what to do with the egg yolks (the whites were used to filter the wine). We are also served a coconut flan; merenguitos – merengue clouds; and a wonderful crescent-shaped almond tart that recalls the famous almond cake of Spain’s Galician Jews (not necessarily from the southern Jewish-Moroccan heritage). “The cuisine, like the language, is a mixture of worlds. It would be wonderful if the whole world spoke Haketia,” says Nina, who taught a course last year at Bar-Ilan University’s Salti Center for Ladino Studies and dreams of writing a cookbook about Tetouan cuisine. “It’s a blend of cultures – Jewish, Christian, Arab, Muslim, European and North African – that merge to create a unique harmony.”