North Africa’s 3,000-year-old new 12 months’s celebration

This 12 months will mark the primary time that Morocco recognises the Amazigh new 12 months as an official vacation, loved with festive meals like couscous.

On the night of 12 January, dozens of bonfires burned on the rocky hillside above the village of Tisselday in Morocco’s Excessive Atlas Mountains. They have been lit by households for Yennayer, the Amazigh (or Berber) new 12 months celebrations. The fires symbolise a cleaning or purification of the previous 12 months, defined Ahmed Agouni, a skilled geologist and proprietor of the long-running Irocha guesthouse in his house village of Tisselday, some 1,530m above sea degree on the Excessive Atlas japanese slopes.

The Amazigh calendar begins at 950 BCE, when King Sheshonq ascended the throne of Egypt, that means this 12 months is 2974. For Amazigh communities in Morocco, this Yennayer will probably be notably particular.

In Could 2023, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI made the event an official nationwide vacation. (It was made one in Algeria on the finish of 2017.) After a protracted historical past of being marginalised, that is broadly seen by the Amazigh neighborhood as a welcome step within the rising respect for his or her tradition, in addition to the deep connections to the land and the seasonal cycles that they proceed to retain.

As North Africa’s authentic inhabitants, the Amazigh (which implies “free individuals” or “noble individuals”; and is Imazighen in plural) have occupied the area because the starting of recorded historical past, and right this moment Morocco and Algeria have the most important Amazigh populations. On the Amazigh calendar, Yennayer marks the ending of the agrarian 12 months and the start of the subsequent, stated Agouni. “The title comes from yan which implies ‘first’ and ayur which implies ‘month’,” he stated.

The date corresponds to the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the extra globally widespread Gregorian one. The primary day of the brand new 12 months on 13 January additionally marks the beginning of the coldest weeks of the 12 months.

“We do not keep by the fireplace lengthy, although,” stated Agouni. “We hurry again house to complete the preparations for dinner.”

That meal, made with meals that symbolise abundance and fertility, is on the coronary heart of Yennayer celebrations. Honouring the harvest and renewal, it is an ode to nature and her bounty. Custom says that you need to go away the desk full in an effort to push back the spectre of famine and guarantee abundance within the 12 months forward. As Yennayer is well known throughout North Africa and among the many Amazigh diaspora, a various set of traditions is noticed. However that festive night meal is a robust fixed on a unifying event that celebrates Amazigh identification, even when what’s on the desk adjustments.

For Agouni and people in his Excessive Atlas village, the principle dish to share with household is ourkemen, made with a wide array of dried legumes (lentils, break up peas, chickpeas, white beans, broad beans) and complete grains (corn, wheat, barley) together with sheep’s or cow’s foot, onions and a few gentle spicing. The title comes from irkm, in accordance with Agouni, which refers to placing one thing into water, because the legumes are first soaked in a single day. Slowly cooked over low-heat to a thick, porridge-like consistency, ourkemen is wealthy, filling and extremely anticipated annually. “It is standard as a result of it represents the widest number of crops,” stated Agouni.

Many properties within the Excessive Atlas additionally put together tagoula, constituted of boiled barley or corn grits and eaten with melted smen (ghee), olive oil or argan oil and honey. Hidden within the backside of the tagoula is a date pit known as amnaz (“fortunate”). Whoever finds it’s thought-about blessed.

For households within the Ouirgane Valley, an hour south of Marrakech within the Excessive Atlas’s western foothills, the date pit typically will get secreted right into a mound of effective couscous garnished with peeled hardboiled eggs and dusted with cinnamon, stated Youssef Bassine, a supervisor on the boutique lodge Olinto within the valley. However after some relatively inauspicious tales of damaged tooth, the Bassine household (like quite a few others) switched to hiding an almond as a substitute. Whereas not teeth-shatteringly arduous, its symbolic luck stays.

In Algeria, the dish most generally related to the vacation is couscous, defined Yasmina Sellam, a skilled agronomist, decide on Algeria’s Grasp Chef and creator of the award-winning e book Mémoire Culinaire de l’Algérie (Culinary Reminiscence of Algeria). “The Yennayer meal is well known utilizing storable items which might be a part of the meals reserve and safety.” These year-round objects typically encompass cereals, legumes and salt-preserved meat. Couscous makes the very best Yenneyer meal, she stated, as a result of its base is barley or wheat and the broth that tops it features a broad number of legumes – beans, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, break up peas, lentils – and rooster or kaddid (salted and dried meat). “In standard tradition throughout Algeria, it is crucial that the Yenneyer meal accommodates these elements for the great omen of a affluent 12 months forward for the harvests,” Sellam defined.

Whereas couscous – often known as sksou in Tamazight (the Amazigh language) – at Yennayer could be corresponding to a turkey on a Christmas desk, there are a few different conventional Algerian dishes that adorn festive tables.

For Hanane Abdelli-Tancrede, creator of the just lately launched cookbook Goûts d’Algérie (Tastes of Algeria) and chef and founding father of Mama Nissa, a classy and standard restaurant serving “fast-good” Algerian specialties in Paris’s second arrondissement, the dish is rechta, made with recent noodles, rooster, chickpeas and turnips, and drizzled with a chicken-based “white” (versus crimson, which is tomato-based) broth flavoured with cinnamon. “Rechta is a festive dish and good to eat for all events, together with Yennayer,” she defined. “It is requested by many shoppers for this.”

Simply as at house, the rechta durum wheat pasta served at Mama Nissa – named for her mom, Anissa, who stays “en commande” (in cost) of the kitchen – is home made, reduce very finely in a pasta machine and steamed 3 times in a couscoussier (a pot-bellied steamer pot with basket). “You must at all times moisten the pasta earlier than steaming it to assist soften and maintain it from sticking collectively,” Abdelli-Tancrede suggested. “When working the pasta, you should be delicate and never break the strands. The phrase rechta comes from the Persian rista, which implies thread. These ‘threads’ ought to be so long as potential.”

Together with luxurious, comforting flavour, the dish carries loads of symbolism. “Yennayer is on the finish of the harvest time, so we devour the winter inventory. However additionally it is the start of one thing. For that we add poultry. The hen represents fertility. We wish the subsequent season to be auspicious and fruitful,” Abdelli-Tancrede stated. “It marks an finish and likewise a starting.”

Sweets, in fact, play a task within the festivities, particularly round Algeria. Baskets of candies, dates, dried figs and nuts are loved by households over tea after the massive meal. One title for this basket, defined Abdelli-Tancrede, is trèze, “13” in French. “That is as a result of it ought to embody a mixture of 13 various kinds of candies, dried fruits and nuts.”

Kids ought to be warned, although. “We throw the candies gently on the heads of kids in order that it brings good luck and that the 12 months forward will probably be candy,” stated Abdelli-Tancrede.

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