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At house in Canada, author Liisa Ladouceur lives a table-for-one life-style. However on a small-group journey in North Africa, she finds camaraderie and luxury in communal meals.
‘You’re not my company, you’re my household.’ It’s the type of factor I’ve come to count on to listen to when travelling in North Africa. In Morocco, in Egypt and now right here in Tunisia, I’ve discovered nothing however next-level hospitality, particularly once I’m lucky sufficient to share a meal with locals.
So, I’m not too shocked when Taoufik welcomes our group to a lunch in his Amazigh household house in Matmata – the place locals dwell in conventional underground troglodyte dwellings – with this heat greeting.
Trying across the desk, as everybody begins passing across the contemporary bread baskets and the very best olive oils we’ve ever tasted, I’m shocked by how a lot my journey mates have began to really feel like household, too.
Fashionable metropolis residing and meals
As a single lady residing alone in Toronto, I eat most of my meals solo. This makes me a part of a development in North America, the place extra of us are eating at our desks or in entrance of our screens as an alternative of round different folks. From listening to podcasts about happiness, I do know that that is dangerous information.
Research present that shared meals contribute on to our wellbeing, reducing melancholy and boosting our moods. I don’t have to learn the advantageous print to note a droop in my very own life as in-person get togethers have grow to be rarer.
The work hustle is actual, as is inflation. For my friendship group, eating places are actually one thing for particular events, not weekly hangouts. And the shift to distant work means I not benefit from the every day firm of colleagues over lunch. I need to make a change to fight this loneliness, however at house, it’s arduous.
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Sharing meals that matter in Tunisia
By the point I discover myself consuming in Taoufik’s house, a conventional cave dwelling carved into the rock, with easy furnishings and decor, I’ve been travelling on the Tunisia Expedition with my Intrepid group for nearly per week.
Throughout that point, we’ve shared most of our meals collectively. And slowly, with out even noticing, consuming with these strangers has grow to be one of many highlights of the journey.
It begins in Tunis when our tour chief, Yassine, takes us out for lablabi – a hearty Tunisian chickpea soup assembled with bread, poached eggs, olive oil and harissa. It’s a dish no person within the group has ever tasted earlier than and we snigger collectively on the ebullient flourish of the chef and Yassine’s encouragement so as to add extra spicy harissa to our bowls. (In Tunisia, I be taught there’s all the time room for extra harissa.)
Collectively, we additionally attempt contemporary prickly pear fruit from a avenue vendor and sip from small cups of date-palm sap supplied by a sun-weathered sharecropper we’re fortunate to go to at the beginning of his harvest. As a gaggle, we queue at bakeries for native makroudh cookies within the inland desert metropolis of Kairouan and enjoyment of making an attempt bambalouni doughnuts within the northern coastal city of Sidi Bou Mentioned. These collective experiences make it simpler to pattern new issues and inject a way of shared enjoyable into discovering our personal Tunisian favourites.
For me, that’s brik. Or, as a few of us exclaim with delight each time it seems on the desk, ‘breeeeeek!’ This paper-like savoury pastry (full identify: brik a l’oeuf) – which features a runny egg and herbs – is deep fried till crispy golden brown like a Tunisian samosa. It turns into a deal with not solely as a result of it’s scrumptious, however as a result of the thrill for its arrival is shared.
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Meals as a shared love language
What does it imply to ‘break bread’? The time period has non secular origins, as seen within the New Testomony phrase ‘it’s arduous to stay enemies whenever you’ve damaged bread collectively’. However the thought of meals as fellowship is common throughout totally different cultures and beliefs. It’s how we welcome company into our house. It’s how we have fun essential occasions. The phrase nerd in me additionally notes the connection to ‘companion’ – which mixes the Latin ‘com’ (with) and ‘panis’ (bread.) Whichever approach you take a look at it, meals is a shared love language that’s been lived out over centuries.
I do, after all, even have good recollections of fantastic meals loved in my very own firm. As a solo traveller, I’ll fortunately sit on a terrace, sipping tea and folks watching, or sidle as much as a bar and strike up conversations.
However there’s all the time been one thing lacking on these journeys. In-jokes, for one factor, the late-night laughter led to when remembering a very weird or superb meals discovery. And the type of camaraderie that solely occurs sitting round a desk with a gaggle, when your guard comes down over wine and/or cheese (or maybe a spicy tajine) and also you make actual connections.
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From the Sahara to Star Wars
On this Tunisia Expedition with Intrepid, that occurred each day. We began gathering effectively earlier than meal time for drinks and deep talks, the place weak conversations turned strangers into mates. One evening, somebody began a recreation of ‘High 5 stuff you love in your metropolis’ which saved us on the desk lengthy after the plates had been cleared. And positively impressed just a few new future journey concepts amongst our new group of mates.
A few of these meals had been in extraordinary settings, which helped. Like within the Sahara, the place we watched bread bake on scorching coals within the sand. Or a personal steady surrounded by forests in Gammarth, the place we met stunning horses, and people who drank alcohol sat round sampling Tunisian wine with our selfmade lunch. Or at Taoufik’s troglodyte cave dwelling – a pure conversion starter, because it resembles these used as capturing areas for Luke Skywalker’s house in Star Wars.
Nonetheless, it was the small moments – like studying somebody’s favorite drink and getting it for them with out being requested, or providing to share your stash of contemporary dates on a protracted drive, or selecting to eat collectively, even once we had free time – that may follow me.
My favorite meals had been these served family-style, with heaped dishes of couscous, carrot salads and ojja (Tunisia’s model of shakshuka eggs) handed round between us.
These took me again in time to prolonged household gatherings at my grandparents’ home in Canada and the way a lot I miss when as much as 25 of us would eat elbow-to-elbow across the massive wood desk. The meals was quite simple, usually produced from what grew that yr on the farm. Nothing just like the delicacies of Tunisia, with its mixture of Amazigh, Arab, Jewish, Turkish, Italian and different influences. And completely no harissa. However the feeling stays the identical: consolation.
The place I dwell in North America, the concept of consuming effectively usually refers to what you eat. With my group in Tunisia, I used to be reminded that it could additionally imply who you eat with. I’m not a scientist or a health care provider, however I’m fairly certain that my private happiness index went up with each shared meal on this journey. That’s a lesson I’m taking house with me for all times.
Author Liisa Ladouceur travelled to Tunisia on a small-group tour with Intrepid.
