I grew up in a village located between the Mediterranean and fields of tomatoes and peppers in the Cap Bon peninsula in Tunisia, the birthplace of harissa. My playground was the beach, my family’s farm, and my grandparents’ houch—a central patio at the heart of traditional houses. Each year, at the height of the season, my mother, aunts, cousins, and I gathered there. We would arrive the night before and sleep side by side before waking early, while it was still cool.
By morning, the house had filled. My mother’s cousins and neighbors joined us; trays, coffee, and bundles of cloth—used to lay couscous grains out to dry in the sun—were passed from hand to hand. Crates of freshly picked tomatoes lined the walls, and huge bags of semolina and flour were stacked nearby. Everyone knew what to reach for—even children. My cousins and I filled basins with water to soak the garlic, knowing it would make it easier to peel.
By the time the first joyous zaghrouta (ululation) resounded through the home, the work had already started. It always began with tkesksiss—the act of making couscous from scratch. Large metal trays and sieves were set out, and the oldest women, their faces marked with Amazigh tattoos, took their place around them, sleeves pushed back, hands already dusted with semolina. Water, flour, a repeated movement—rolling, sieving, gathering, then starting again. Years later, a French friend attended a tkesksiss. She called it la danse des mains—the dance of the hands. There is only one way to learn that dance: you watch, you repeat, you try again. Slowly, it settles somewhere deep, until you no longer have to think about it.
Photo: Boutheina Ben Salem
Around us, the courtyard filled with other gestures: tomatoes split and laid out to dry, baklouti peppers—the indigenous variety used for harissa—strung into long garlands, figs opened to the sun.
This is the oula—never just a way of preserving food, but a way of living in step with the seasons: fermenting, drying, distilling, transforming. Even after we moved to France when I was eight years old, we would return to Tunisia every summer to participate in the oula. This matriarchal practice defines Tunisia’s food culture. As much as I see it as poetic, it was born centuries ago out of necessity—it was a way to make provisions for the year ahead, when winter brought scarcity. In the absence of fridges, fermenting, sun-drying, and preserving in salt were the only ways to keep food from spoiling. The practice didn’t fade with the modern age; women across generations have kept it alive.