I would be very interested in a bibliography of references to Moorish cooking in English cookery books.

“Their Salating is Lettuce, Endive, Cardus, Parsley, Apium, and other sweet Herbs, Onions, Cucumbers of several kinds, some about a Yard in length, and two or three inches thick, and hairy, this is esteemed the wholsomest), Radishes, Fumatas, or Apples of Love, all which they will cut, and put oil, vinegar, and salt, with some red Pepper: This Salate they eat with Bread.”

Harissa as a salad dressing?

I do not believe it is an independent invention in the sense “wow, we have these ingredients, now let’s make something up”.

I think it’s a transference, using new ingredients to substitute for old ones into an already existing category of table and cooking relishes. I started to write something about this, I’ll try to dig it up. Prior to chile peppers and tomatoes a tendency to prefer reddish colored table relishes existed.

As far as Paula Wolfer assigning harissa to Morocco, in her book she calls it Tunisian and via private correspondence she says it entered Morocco via tourism. And Moroccan cooking in general is not piquant, they never embraced the chile pepper the way it was in Tunisia and regionally in Algeria.

I think if Kitty Morse were asked about the existence of “Moroccan” harissa she would probably agree that it entered via tourist demand or Moroccans returning from France where they’re is a sort of “Pan-Magrhebine” culture.

Proportion is important. The Perry recipes uses 5 heads (!!! cloves?) of garlic, 3 dirhams of oil (about 9 gms I think), 1.5 dirhams of caraway, 0.5 dirham pepper, 1 dirham cinnamon (three sprigs rue, mint, bunch of parsley). Green lemon juice/vinegar to cover.

So very little oil and more a paste of spiced and herbed garlic or maybe something like a salsa verde?

As to the Perry recipe, it would rather depend on the proportions, wouldn’t it? In an adobo the chile is the main thickening agent.

Rachel

Garlic, olive oil, pepper, salt, parsley,caraway seeds, mint, rue, cinnamon mixed with the juice of green lemons (potential these are limes) or vinegar.

Add Chiles to this and I wonder if you would end up with an adobos, a harissa or something else again.

In an essay on the topic Perry mentions that the essential feature of these sauces was thick, smooth texture.

Harissa could be decended from these sauces or an independent invention, not enough data to tell.

As I suggested, they might have a shared ancestor in some of the Arabic/Med. sauces, but I’m not sure how direct a link it would be.

One question. Wine vinegar is obviously post-Spanish contact in Mexico, but what about other souring agents? Fruit “vinegars”? Are these pre-colonial or post-colonial copies of wine vinegar?

But I do see similarities particularly between a Mexican adobo and harissa.

Technique. An adobo consists of chiles ground to a paste with spices and or herbs and or alliums and an acid, in this case usually vinegar, and sometimes with olive oil as well. Harissa seems to be chiles ground to a paste with spices and or herbs and or alliums and an acid, in this case usually lemon plus olive oil.

Texture and taste. The oil makes the harissa more unctuous but the thickness is about the same. The taste minus the olive oil is about the same.

Uses. Adobos are usually used as a marinade that then turns into the sauce. Harissa appears to have more uses but perhaps that’s because it is playing the role of salsa and adobo.

Independent invention? Could well be. These are universal kinds of ingredients. But similar? Yes, I think so.