Couscous

Abstract

This article proposes to consider couscous, a North African specialty and a favourite dish of the French, as an edible site of memory. Displacing the focus from gastronomy, a discourse of national culinary superiority, to a single dish, I retrace the irresistible ascent of couscous to fame in the French culinary pantheon. The military conquest and colonization of Algeria familiarized French diners with the dish and associated it with forms of racialized and sexualized colonial burlesque in songs and vaudeville. Settlers appropriated it as terroir to claim their “Algérianité.” North African immigration and decolonization created a de facto market of consumers in France, while the industrialization of food production made this preparation into a valuable commodity and a ready-made meal, obfuscating its colonial roots. The French’s affection for couscous is often hailed as a sign of tolerance in an otherwise divisive and fraught public conversation about immigration, identity, and discrimination. However, couscous’ colonial baggage and racialized legacy continue to resonate, shaping tastes, and informing political rhetoric as well as cultural hierarchies. The (after)taste of empire lingers on at a granular level, as edible memory.