Couscous is made with moistened semolina wheat and is rolled in to spherical granules and coated in fine ground wheat flour. The name comes from the Maghrebi Arabic word "kuskus/ksaksu" and means "well rolled, well formed, rounded. It features extensively in the cuisines of Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.One of the earliest written references to couscous is found in a 13th century Hispano-Muslim cookery book called Kitāb al-tabǐkh fǐ al-Maghrib wa'l-Andalus. Couscous also appeared in the cuisine of the Nasrid royalty, who were resident in Granada from 1212-1492. In the 13th century, a Syrian historical from Aleppo makes reference to couscous 4 times. With these various references, it indicates that it spread fairly quickly throughout the Arab and Iberian geography, but features more heavily in the cuisine of the west and embedded itself intrinsically in the Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Western Libyian staple diets. Couscous was taken from Syria to Turkey in the 16th century and is eaten in most of the southern provinces.
The Berber dominance of early medieval Sicily featured couscous as a staple and in Rome in Bartolomeo Scappi's culinary guide of 1570 a Moorish dish is described, succussu; in Tuscany the Sephardic Jews arrived in Livorno in the 16th century, bringing couscous with them and was often thought of being of Jewish origin, even being referred to later as "Jewish couscous" in Pellegrino Artusi's La Scienza in suicina (Milan, 1897).
In Northern Europe the earliest reference to couscous is in Provence, where a traveller called Jean Jacques Bouchard wrote of eating it in Toulon in 1630 and a further reference was made in Brittany, in a letter dated January 1699.
Today, the dish is a traditional staple throughout the Maghred and is popular throughout West African Sahel, France, Spain, Madeira, western Sicily, Greece, Cyprus and all through the Middle East. It is particularly popular among Jews of North African descent, such as the Algerian Jews, Tunisian Jews and Moroccan Jews and is now enjoyed in many other parts of the world as well.
