The Food Network Comes to Town

In my considerable daydreaming, I never imagined that an English television network would come to our little town. But they did. Jenny Morris , the “Giggling Gourmet” celebrity chef from South Africa is starring in several segments on Moroccan food for the Food Network EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). One of the segments is on the making and cooking of couscous, a staple Moroccan food. Thanks to our connection with Gail of Fes Food, Cooperative Eljawda , a couscous and bread cooperative in Ribat El Kheir, was chosen for the filming. I think I was more excited than the women, possibly because they have never seen the show and don’t realize how widely distributed it is.

First, the co-op women were filmed making couscous from scratch—rolling, rubbing, and sieving, through three different sized baskets to produce progressively smaller uniform grains. This is an arduous process that is rarely done today outside of rural North Africa. Most couscous is now made by machine. Since it takes days to dry, the following cooking segment was filmed with couscous already dried.

Jenny then set up on the ridge trail overlooking the valley to do her cooking segment where she made a sweet couscous dish (using my cloves!). We were extremely lucky to have a bright sunny day for the filming, and the snowcapped mountains made a dramatic backdrop. The co-op women were then brought in to taste the finished product. I missed this part since it had already gone dark and the final filming was done inside a house, so I will have to wait to see their reaction on (someone’s) TV.

A week later the film crew was back to do a segment on traditional olive oil pressing with the large stone horse-driven grinder. Jenny then made a salad with the olive oil in a dressing which Habib, the mill owner, and Doug were filmed tasting. I had to be away at a craft fair so I also missed this segment and will have to wait to see it. Who knows what will make it through the editing process and actually appear on the Food Network, but the film crew has promised us a DVD of the show.

The actual filming was a rather tedious process with many stops and starts and redos. Mostly we had to sit and wait and watch since our work of dealing with the logistics and with the local bureaucracy had already been done.