The muslim cuisine a heritage of social gathering filled with hospitality- generosity and shared feelings-frr (2)

Faten Ridene Raissi
PhD Student-Université de Carthage
Contractual Assistant-Université Centrale
Symposium Sharing Meals: Social aspects of eating and cooking together
Center for Food & Hospitality Research, Institute Paul Bocuse -Ecully (France)–June 14th 2018
The chronology of a communal nutrition of the human beings has never stopped to
evolve. We can hold firm in this vision, from prehistory , proved by a figurine of
terracotta which was found in Punic necropolis of Carthage, turning back to the
mid-sixth century BC and having 19 cm as height. (INP, © 2010-2020 )
This figurine reproduces a cooking scene in a
domestic oven (an oven of bread that we call
Tabouna), shaped with dried clay. It illustrates a
woman while placing a pancake against the
inner wall of the preheated oven, under the
interested gaze of a child.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Through some lines of his Muaqddima, the Tunisian erudite Ibn Khaldun, pioneer of
sociology, draws a diagram that links the human need of food to the blossoming of
professions such as the farmer who produces the wheat, the miller who grinds it, the baker
who cooks it, the forgeman who manufactures the needed ovens, and so on. This
Khaldounian doctrine supports the collective concept of the human society, due to
individual or shared needs.
Muaqddima: Page 17

Faten Ridene Raissi
We can define a society as an inversed pyramid, in the frame
of which, the sociability of individuals starts in their small family,
composed of a wife/mother, a husband/ father and
kids/sisters/brothers, then extends in the big family, gathering
uncles, aunts, cousins and grand parents, to the whole society, with
which the descendance will get a large continuous contact all
along their growing up.
And since his small family, a young individual starts to
accustom with collaborating and sharing, as the parents would try
to cultivate in the heart bottom of their kids, the spirits of
cooperation, of caring about one another, of sharing different
situations and good or bad feelings.

Faten Ridene Raissi
A familial cuisine figures in this context, accustoming children to share cooking tasks , such as preparing
tables, cutting bread or vegetables, puting napkins, washing dishes, adding ingredients to a meal… and that’s
always under the control of their parents and in a scalable way that grows in parallel with the child’s age and
ability, until he achieves the stage of cooking by himself, which varies according to the youngsters’ ages, interests,
attractions, acquired knowledges resulting from the different geographical environments in which they should have
grew up and the inherited habits of their environment, without forgetting the origin of their parents and what was
planted in their minds from their regional inherited kitchen.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Being part of the social practices, rituals and festive events as mentioned in the UNESCO
convention of 2003 (article 2.c-Paris-October 2003), the gastronomy of every nation represents a
considerable part of its intangible cultural heritage, which deserves to be safeguarded and
transmitted by successive generations.
Ali Dey Dali, a Tunisian ex-student of Paul Bocuse
institute and founder of Babboucha restaurant, defines
the Tunisian cuisine as our personality, reflecting at the
same time where we come from and where we grew.

Faten Ridene Raissi
An inherited gastronomy, of any nation, carved in countless recipes, and filled with principles, know-how,
practices, innovations of spices, evaded visions of geographical boundaries, but also climatic conditions, spatial
location, and especially of a sedimentation of several civilizations and dynasties having crossed the four corners of
a country, is in itself identiterian, being a junction of knowledge, skills, and aromas, in addition to its historical,
patrimonial and artistic dimensions.
A delicacy can distinguish the fusion of several ingredients and kitchenware, as if composing a musical score,
where the jump from a note to another varies between harmony and dissonance, figuring for example int the case of mixture
of salty and sweet in the same dish

Faten Ridene Raissi
And when we talk about specific gastronomy, in relation with the Islamic religion, we can easily distinguish a
holy cuisine, perfumed with the family deep touch, the identiterian specificities of the muslim commonwealth, calling
for gathering, hospitality, generosity : it’s a religious social cuisine, a meeting that brings together the whole family
members, and their guests, caring about one another and sharing their foods and their feelings.
The most known specificity of the Islamic gastronomy is
halal food. In the second sourate Baqarah of the Holy Quran, Allah
Says:
He has forbidden to you only carrion, and blood, and the flesh of
swine, and that over which .ny name other than God's has been
invoked; [139] but if one is driven by necessity - neither coveting it
nor exceeding his immediate need -no sin shall be upon him: for,
behold, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace. - 2:173
So through this verse, Allah prohibits muslims from eating corpse meat of the allowed animals, the porks’
meat, even if it is alive, and drinking the blood, in any situation, except the deep need, where no other solution is
findable, when a muslim faces the risk of death.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Islamic cuisine is distinguishable during islamic celebrations, such as the holy month of ramadhen, where
muslims are called for fasting, followed by the Aid of Fitr, where we celebrate the good and safe conduct of the holy
month, the Aid of Idhha, also called sacrifice feast where we honor the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice
his son, as an act of obedience to God's command, without forgetting the Mawled Nabawi Cherif, where we celebrate
the birthday of the prophet Muhamed, peace and blessings be upon him.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Ramadhan, the ninth –and the only- hijri month, which name figures in the verses of the Holy Quran, where Allah says in
the verse 185 of the second surate (Baqarah) of the Holy Quran: It was the month of Ramadan in which the Qur'an was
[first] bestowed from on high as a guidance unto man and a self-evident proof of that guidance, and as the standard by
which to discern the true from the false. Hence, whoever of you lives to see [158] this month shall fast throughout it; but he
that is ill, or on a journey, [shall fast instead for the same] number of other days. God wills that you shall have ease, and
does not will you to suffer hardship; but [He desires] that you complete the number [of days required], and that you extol
God for His having guided you aright, and that you render your thanks [unto Him]. - 2:185
Whatever would be the busyness rate of a tunisian
muslim family, they do their utmost to meet in thirty days
during fast cutting in the holy month of ramadan, during which,
eating together is the most sacred gathering: it's a ritual that
stills be practiced until nowadays.
Besides, during this month of gathering and sharing of
peace and blessings, the habit of opening doors and welcoming
guests is widespread in the whole muslim countries .

Faten Ridene Raissi
From the rituals of the holy month of Ramadan, figuring in
the pre-dawn meal that we call Sahour, blessed with the Prophetic
Sunnah of eating dates, and to which calls a drummer every
dawn; passing through the breaking of the fast that takes place
once we listen to the Maghreb prayer call and the canon, to the
festive or funeral communal cooking (of salty dishes or sweets),
without forgetting the big family meeting during the summer
for the habit of food storage preparation for the coming year
(Ridene, 2016) etc, from all the already mentioned specificities,
the Tunisian cuisine has not and will never cease to be an identity
card, a puzzle of crosswords, which separate pieces were thrown
and then randomly sedimented over the time, by the different
dynasties and civilizations that crossed the coastal land Ifriqiya,
and made it a fertile ground, which highlights a prosperous
culinary heritage.

Faten Ridene Raissi
As I open My Eyes film of Leila Bouzid (A peine j’ouvre mes yeux): a detailed presentation of
family gathering during Holy Ramadan and Aid El Fitr
A Tunisian Social Drama made by Leila Bouzid in 2015
Seven Nominations in international film festivals
Three won prices
A few months before the revolution in Tunisia, 18 year-
old Farah has a passion for life and sings in a political
rock band. Her mother, knowing the dangers of Tunisia,
wants her to pursue a career as a doctor.
A peine j’ouvre mes yeux!

Faten Ridene Raissi
Through a profile close up on the face of the heroine's father, Leila Bouzid exhibits to the
spectators, his forthcoming back from work, to spend his religious holiday of Aid Al Fitr, with his
family, listening on his way, to a host of a radio station, in parallel with a sound effect of the car and the
wind on the road, announcing the observation of the new moon of Aid Al Fitr, in order to confirm that
the day after is the first day of the lunar month Chawal, successor of the holy month of fast Ramadan,
where we celebrate our satisfaction about fasting.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Then, and through a medium close up, using the subjective camera called POV: point of view, which
illustrates what the eye of the character looks on, and a mise on abîme between the screening of supplications,
through its similar of the movie, the filmmaker illustrates the habit of the Islamic countries TV channels, that
broadcast in parallel with breaking fast (after the maghrib prayer call), the famous Tunisian supplication of the
musician and singer Lotfi Bouchnek, in which he enumerates the 99 names of Allah, Such song has deeply
facilitated learning all those names by heart from the spectators, whatever would be their age range.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Having the supplication as a voice-over that continues to be playing on TV, in order to enlighten the ritual
of breaking fast while listening to religious music which invades the dining room with spirituality and blessing of
the holy month, topped by the warmth of a family, the camera switches to the dining room showing through a
medium shot, the daughter Beya (real name of the actress Beya Mthaffer), first standing up, having set the plate of
the Brika on the table, and still taking the bowl of soup (put on another plate) on her right hand, then sitting down
and breaking her fast with her mother.

Faten Ridene Raissi
The shot scale of close up was not chosen by the director to clearly show the content of the table of
Breaking fast, then we allowed ourselves to zoom in this shot to decode the content of a ritual dinner during
holy month: and as you can see, figure the two most famous gastronomies of the holy month: the soup and
the brik.

Faten Ridene Raissi
For the soup that we cook every day for fast breaking, then eat warm to soften the empty stomach
after a day of fasting we have multiple choices for cooking, such as the Hlalem, Rice soup that may be cook
with turmeric and squid or cuttlefish, barley soup with cloves, chicken soup of orzo , Borghol soup, vegetable
soup baptized broudou, vermicelli soup, and so on.

Faten Ridene Raissi
As for brik, it varies in shape and staffing, its pasta called malsouka, may take many forms, such as
the brik triangles, the doigts de fatma, the salty samsa, and the sorra; whereas the the stuffing whose main
ingredient is found in eggs and melted cheese, may contain tuna, several types of meats such as beef, lamb,
poultry, fish ....

Faten Ridene Raissi
Trente film of Fadhel Jaziri lightens the ritual of calling for Sahour during the holy month,
A Tunisian historical fiction film made by Fadhel Jaziri in 2007
The film's events take place in Tunisia in the 1930s, more precisely
from 1924 to 1934. They tell the story of three myths in Tunisian
history: Tahar Haddad, one of the precursors of human rights, the
freedom and emancipation of Tunisian women, Mohamed Ali El
Hammi, founder of the first Tunisian trade union movement and Abu
el Kacem Chebbi, considered the reformer of Tunisian poetry. In a
very agitated political context, with a people struggling for
independence, the film relates a confrontation between reforming
minds and a conservative society attached to traditions.
Trente

Faten Ridene Raissi
In this sequence from Thalathoun, the filmaker Fadhel Jaziri elucidates the ritual of calling for sahour
before dawn prayer, as we have shown in the beginning of our presentation.

Faten Ridene Raissi
And by the end of Ramdhan Holy month, and as a recognition and celebration between family members,
and as the islam religion valorizes the kinship, most of a family members should meet in the grand-
parents’ house, giving gifts and congratulations. Such meeting is warmly distinguished by homemade
sweets that are distributed to the guests, such as Baklawa, Kaak Warka, Ghrayba, and this is what was
represented by the filmamker in another shot of As I Open my eyes, where the mum is distrubting
sweets to her guests,

Faten Ridene Raissi
Conclusion
In our presentation, we did our utmost to show how much could many
sequences from Tunisian fiction movies, reflect the viewpoints of the
filmmakers to the intangible cultural heritage, making their movies like a
mirror which reflects the consolidating culinary rituals in Tunisian, by
establishing many representations of various ritual foods, which may be cook
and eaten, together, during specific situations, in order to prove the sociability
of the Muslim inherited ethnic foods, as much as their major role in the daily
life of a society.

Faten Ridene Raissi
Thank you for your Attention
https://cnas.academia.edu/frrfrr
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Faten_Ridene
https://www.linkedin.com/in/frr-frr-7152a514b

The muslim cuisine a heritage of social gathering filled with hospitality- generosity and shared feelings-frr (2)

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