Couscous - The Staple Moroccan Cuisine

This was March-April 2009 when I visited lovely Morocco. Since then much time has though elapsed, yet the memory is still fresh and enticing. I can still relive and cherish those lovely days, especially the one when I was at the emblematical, vast square called Jamaa el-Fana in Marrakesh. UNESCO has rightly declared Jamaa el-Fana “the Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”. Nature must have thought it to be the way it is; unarranged, unplanned, disorganized but still very attractive, rich in culture, full of entertainment and above all teeming with variety of food items.
Well! When we talk of Moroccan food, the first and the foremost thing that comes to mind is Moroccan staple food called couscous. It is usually said, “what pasta is to Italians, what rice is to the Chinese, couscous is to the people of Morocco”. It has been a principal meal in Moroccan culture for more than 1000 years. In 2011, couscous was elected as the third favorite dish of French people in a study by TNS Sofres for magazine Vie Pratique Gourmand and the first in East of France.
Couscous is made of fine semolina and topped with meat and seven vegetables. Traditionally, women separate and mix the grains of semolina by using the palm of their hands and salt water. Friday is the day of prayer, so it is a Moroccan tradition all over the country to celebrate this day with a couscous meal.
Couscous is so popular that in some regions it is called ta'am, the word which, in the rest of the Arabic-speaking world means simply "food”. For Moroccans, couscous is part of their cultural identity, a food that is ceremonial, served at each and every milestone of their lives. That’s why; its preparation and consumption are nearly always social events. Perhaps that’s the reason that the French author Pierre, in his book Au Maroc, called it "the piece de résistance of a Moorish dinner”, which can roughly be translated as “the Irresistible Part of the Muslim Food”.