Berbers

This week we will be learning about the Berbers of Morocco. We will cook a very complex dish called Chicken Bastilla. This dish is a flaky pastry filled with layers of savory chicken, scrambled eggs, fried almonds sweetened with sugar and orange blossom water, and garnished with cinnamon and sugar. We will also cook a very traditional vegetable couscous with root vegetables. We will cook this in a traditional Berber cooking vessel called a Tajine. This is an earthen clay pot that traditionally is used over coals. It is very similar to stewing or slow cooking. The food should be very tender and delicious!

Berber history goes back to prehistoric times. They’ve been around for at least 4000 years. Calling themselves Amazigh, the proud raiders, they fought against the Romans, Arab, and French invaders. Even though the Romans and others have tried to colonize the Berber people, they have managed to preserve their own language and culture and in reality were never beaten!

Berber language is primarily oral in nature, although they have had their own writing system for more than 2500 years. Sometimes hard to find, the writing can be seen catalogued in the small museums throughout the south.

 

A light skinned people, they have been called by many names: Libyans by the ancient Greeks, Numbians, and Africans by the Romans and Moors by medieval Europe. In fact, it was the Arabs who came up with the Berber name. Islam came to the Berbers in the ninth and tenth centuries. Prior to then, most Berbers across Africa were Christian or Jewish. Two great Islamic Berber dynasties, Almoravids and Almohads, ruled large parts of Spain and northwest Africa.

Today, most of the twenty-seven million Moroccans are either Berbers, Arabs, or Moors (people of Berber/Arab decent). Their ancestors became the Almoravids and Almohads that built the mighty Moorish empire that ruled Spain, Portugal and Northern African.

 

Most of today’s Berbers live in the mountains of Morocco while the Arabs and Moors live in the cities. The west has characterized Berbers as nomads using camels to cross the Sahara desert. Most today are farmers of the mountains and valleys in Morocco. They were traders in the earlier days. Berber’s long recorded influence affected commerce by establishing trading routes between the West African and the Sub-Saharan region. They transported goods from beyond the Sahara desert to the Northern Moroccan cities.

 

Different tribes of Berbers inhabit different regions in Morocco. Drawa Berbers are found in the Draa Valley. The Dades live in the North East, The Mesgita, Seddrat and Zeri tribes are along the rives of the North West. Moroccan Rif region is home to the Ghomara.

Our Chicken Bastilla was delicious! The flaky delicate phyllo dough was lovely paired with the savory chicken and onions, sweet cinnamon sugar fried almonds, and umami egg and onion sauté!