• 1 All translations into English are by the author.

1Descriptions of local food form an integral part of settler memoirs and French accounts of travels through the colonial Maghreb, and introduced the notion of a novel, “exotic” cuisine to 19^th and early 20^th century readers in the Métropole. North African dishes were usually described as either lacking something or including something that somehow “spoiled” it for French tastes. The journalist and historian François Bournand, for example, described a feast in Tunisia that he had been invited to: “[…] the spicy dishes and the lack of cleanliness of the culinary preparations among the natives have always, despite the habit [i.e., his familiarity with life in Tunisia], inspired an invincible repugnance in me, which has never allowed me to eat much either among the Muslims or among the Israelites […]” (Bournand 1893: 325f.).1 Besides the lack of cleanliness, it was, as indicated by Bournand, primarily spiciness that ruined Maghrebi cuisine for the French in this time period.

• 2 On this development, see subchapter “Spiced to Excess”.
• 3 On the history of the introduction of chilli into the Maghreb, see: Wright, 2007: 42.

2For the French, most spices were historically associated with a specific kind of foreignness: As the food historian Andrew Dalby set forth in his book “Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices”, spices were traditionally associated with hot and arid regions (Dalby 2000: 123). In the hot and arid Maghreb, many of the spices that French authors of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries encountered had once been readily used by French cooks, as, between the 12^th and the 17^th centuries, Europe’s consumption of spices had been significant. In the 17^th century, however, spices fell out of fashion in France. By the time of the military conquest of Algeria in the mid-19^th century, these spices had become less common in most of Europe.2 Consequently, the popular landscape of spices in the Maghreb seemed very foreign to French observers. In a travel account, for example, Victor Cambon described a typical Maghrebi market by stating that the colonised North Africans tried to interest Europeans in “the food that they are trying to sell”, which, according to Cambon consisted of animals and “implausible spices and condiments” (Cambon 1885: 61f.). While Maghrebi food was seasoned with a variety of spices that had once been popular in France, spiciness came, according to most of the colonial sources, from chillis (Boutineau & Fray 1890: 44).3

• 4 Ramadan was seen by some French authors as a prime example of this behaviour. In his medical study (...)
• 5 This can also be seen in the discussion of the alcohol consumption of the colonised, where they wer (...)
• 6 Paul Lemoine, for example, described the food that he was offered as a guest in Morocco – tea, a ta (...)

9Most of the French authors writing on everyday life in the colonial Maghreb believed that this hard, simple life was interrupted by moments of gluttony (Vignon 1893: 365).4 Both the frugality and sobriety of the colonised and these moments of excess – on religious holidays – were framed as being disproportionate, and Muslims, framed as immoderate by nature, were capable only of alternating between these two extremes.5 Yet there were authors who suggested that while the food that North Africans consumed every day was simple, they liked eating large amounts of it. Gaston Bonnefont, for example, claimed in an account of his travels through Algeria that “A few bites [of couscous] are enough of a meal for a European. The Arab, despite his habits of sobriety, swallows several pounds of it without batting an eyelid” (Bonnefont 1888: 139). This ability to consume large amounts of food in a short period of time – allegedly more than a European could have consumed6 – seems to have confused some colonial authors. Reporting in 1889 about a geography conference on Tunisia, geographer Jules Desfontaines described his surprise at the sheer quantity of food his Tunisian travelling companions had consumed during a feast: “Now is the time to wonder how these Arabs, of unprecedented sobriety, who usually know how to be content with the most basic ration, can, on occasion, swallow prodigious quantities of food without discomfort. Their stomachs, under the influence of a prolonged frugal diet, should have retracted and [should be] unable to relax enough to receive and properly digest masses of food.” Desfontaines suggested that only a biological difference in the make-up of stomachs could explain what he and others had observed: “These stomachs, which are essentially rubber, obviously form a special variety [of stomachs]” (Desfontaines 1889: 27f.).

• 7 On the framing of this new cuisine as modern and elegant, see, for example: Freedman 2020: 86.
• 8 For a very similar comment, see also: La Forge 1894: 138.

11The 19^th century French travel authors and medical experts describing the landscape of spices in the colonial Maghreb had consequently grown up believing a lack of spices to be natural, modern and elegant.7 Contact with Maghrebi eating habits consequently came as somewhat of a culture shock, in which the spice consumption of the Maghrebi colonised was framed as excessive. This assessment was almost uniform among the French colonial authors, with few exceptions. The physician Amédée Maurin was one, explaining in a travel account that the food in Algeria was spicy but not more so than dishes prepared by “certain peoples of southern Europe” (Maurin 1873: 101f.).8

• 9 From the Arabic word maraqa, broth.
• 10 The same formulation can also be found in Daubeil’s report on Tunisia (Daubeil 1897: 22).

12However, the overall impression of French authors in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries was that Maghrebi cuisine was unreasonably spiced. A doctor Bernard, for example, described Algerian marga,9 the traditional sauce poured over a couscous, as “spiced to excess” (Bernard 1887 : 142)10 and Charles Lallemand exclaimed that, while a Tunisian soup with vermicelli was “very decent”, it was also “spicy according to the formula of the Arab culinary art, that is to say with an abundance of spices to revive a dead person” (Lallemand 1892: 107).

• 11 There were, however, also authors who described Moroccan food as very spicy (Gaud 1933: 16; Lemoine (...)

13French travel literature and medical handbooks consistently described Algerian and Tunisian food as excessively spicy (Charmetant 1875: 29; Boutineau & Fray 1890: 44; Brault 1905: 60), while Moroccan food was sometimes described as somewhat less fiery in comparison (Martinière 1919: 229f.).11 Others, however, like the Algerian Mohammed Soualah, who wrote a study on the “Native Society of North Africa”, did not differentiate between the cuisines of the three Maghrebi countries or between the levels of spiciness in them. Soualah’s simple overall assessment of Maghrebi food was that “The native cuisine is strongly spiced” (Soualah 1937: Vol. 2, 215).

• 12 This expression of the colonised being “healthy, noble savages” was used by Worboys in the specific (...)

14This perceived overconsumption of spices was believed to have consequences for the bodies of the consumers. This can be seen in the book on “Medicine and Hygiene” by the French physician Adolphe Armand, in which he warned doctors that they should be “remembering that their [the North Africans’] organs are less sensitive to stimulants than those of the latter [Europeans], because of the great use they make of aromatics and spices, and that it is therefore necessary to increase the dose of tonics and stimulants” (Armand 1859: 329). While Armand believed this insensitivity to be caused by the “great use” of “aromatics and spices”, his statement about North Africans’ organs being “less sensitive to stimulants” is also part of a wider medical narrative present in the 19^th century, which framed the colonised, as “noble, healthy savage[s]”, to use a term proposed by the medical historian Michael Worboys in 1976 (Worboys 1976: 84). 19^th century medical experts in the colonies often believed that the colonised were simpler and more primitive, but also physically tougher and more robust than Europeans.12

• 13 The French word caïd comes from the Arabic qāʾid, i.e. notable.

20There was also a group of authors who suggested that Maghrebi food was agreeable to Europeans – not despite its spiciness, but very often because of it (Lallemand 1892: 107; La Forge 1894: 137; Daubeil 1897: 22; Martinière 1919: 229f.). Others explained that they had been able to overcome an initial distaste and had grown to like it. The French teacher Eugène Vayssettes admitted being astonished in 1859 at the food he was offered by a caïd¹³ in Algeria. He had enjoyed the whole meal and admitted that he not “suspected” such a “choice in the dishes, a delicacy in the preparation” among “the Arabs”: “From that day on I took a liking to this cuisine, both honeyed and spicy, which at first glance makes our delicate palates wince so much […]” (Vayssettes 1859: 25).

• 14 Blanche Duplenne, for example, wrote in her medical dissertation that in Tunisia, couscous “will al (...)

21Reports on French settlers and travellers becoming accustomed to spicy Maghrebi food were sometimes directly linked to theories of assimilation or to fears about French settlers in North Africa losing their French identity. In 1847, i.e. in the first phase of the colonisation of the region, Paul Dieudonné Fabar described Europeans that “went native” in Algeria. While the “most ardent converted to Islam”, “others contented themselves” with adapting Algerian clothes and of making a “considerable absorption of chilli and couscoussou [sic]” (Fabar 1847: 27). The majority of the French publications suggested, however, that French stomachs could never get used to spicy Maghrebi food,14 based on ideas of a clear biological difference between colonisers and colonised.

• 15 19^th and 20^th century medical sources are full of warnings about the sexuality of Maghrebi men. “In (...)
• 16 Arguably, the excessive male North African sexuality could also sometimes be perceived as a potenti (...)
• 17 There were, however, also French authors who believed Muslim North African men to be “under-sexed”, (...)

22French authors in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries believed both male and female North Africans to be, by nature, excessively sensual. The French physician Étienne-Paul Laurens, for example, believed there to be an exceptional frequency of sexual intercourse and masturbation among the Algerian colonised, whom he defined as people “who are particularly inclined to this” (Laurens 1919: 45). Colonial sources described male Maghrebi sexuality as being strong and omnipresent,15 as well as threatening to both local and settler women (Stoler 2002: 59; Keller 2007: 208).16 Historian Julia Clancy-Smith stated that male Muslim sexuality was “symbolized by polygamy and the harem” in colonial accounts. The mere existence of polygamy and the relative simplicity of divorce in Islam, which allowed men to have multiple sexual partners in parallel or at least throughout their lives, were, in the eyes of many colonial authors, proof of the excessive sexuality of Muslim men, who had, after all, consciously codified them into existence. Clancy-Smith further added that Algerian Muslim men were typically described as “over-sexed” by French observers (Clancy-Smith 1998: 162).17

• 18 See also: Trumelet 1885: 297.
• 19 Théodore Pein, for example, claimed that “Arab” men were “Very prone [to impotence], due to the exc (...)

23Many French authors also believed in the “precocious nubility” (Armand 1854: 446) of Arab women, who were believed to become “nubile” at “eight, nine or ten years” (Villot 1875: 60). Even though these colonial accounts framed these girls as victims and regretted their early loss of innocence, French authors also ascribed an innate sexual insatiability to Maghrebi women, which weakened – through overuse – the sexual drive of their husbands, who in turn had to turn to all kinds of medical and magical assistance. The French physician Lucien Leclerc referred to this female insatiability when writing about the prevalence of polygamy in Kabylia, by which he meant both a man having several wives and “consecutive” polygamy, i.e. remarriage after divorce. While polygamy was, for him, proof of the excessive sexuality of Muslim men, he believed that the equally active sexuality of Muslim women exhausted and prematurely aged Maghrebi men, whom he described as regularly inquiring about aphrodisiacs when they came into contact with European men (Leclerc 1864: 97f.).18 In Leclerc’s view, it was not the sexual needs of men that made them eager for aphrodisiacs, but the insatiable nature of Muslim women: “About forty subjects, often old men, came to us for aphrodisiacs. If we objected to their age, they would tell us that it was less for them than [in order to] to satisfy the wishes of their spouses” (Leclerc 1864: 97f.). This idea of willing or unwilling overuse having prematurely weakened the sexual drive of Muslim men can be found in many publications;19 indeed, impotence – often at an early age (Furnari 1845: 29) – was framed by some as a typically “Oriental” disorder (Henricy & Lacroix 1847: 35).

• 20 The French versions of this saying sometimes slightly differ in their structure. For the sake of si (...)

25The sexuality of the colonised was often connected by French medical experts to their consumption of spices, as seen in the aforementioned quote by Lafitte of spices stimulating “the reproductive apparatus, already so excitable in the Arab, too much” (Lafitte 1892: 95). In descriptions of eating habits of the colonised in the colonial Maghreb, French sources often returned to the wisdom of an “Arab saying”: “There is nothing worse for an old man than a good cook and a young wife.”20 This interlinking of overeating with sexuality was not something new or, indeed, particularly “Arab” or North African. Early Christian authors had long recommended asceticism, based on the assumption that the consumption of food could cause sexual urges (Walker Bynum 1985: 11; Frayne 2016: 193).

• 21 Thābit ibn Qurrah as quoted in: Ibn Abi Usaybi'ah 2020: 127.

26Many French reports did not explicitly mention spices when referring to this saying, yet, as most French authors in the 19^th and 20^th centuries believed Maghrebi food to be defined by, on the one hand, a deep frugality and, on the other hand, this excessive spiciness, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, in their eyes, a good North African cook was somebody who used large amounts of spices. French authors attributed this saying to various notable Muslim scholars, such as Averroes (the Andalusian 12^th century philosopher and doctor Ibn Rušd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, the famous 11^th century Persian philosopher and doctor) (Villot 1875: 467, FN 1; Claretie 1893: 214). Most often the French sources attributed the saying to Thābit ibn Qurrah, a 9^th century Arabic physician (Leclerc 1876: 170; Bertherand 1883: 15). Thābit ibn Qurrah was indeed recorded as saying: “There is nothing more harmful for the older man than to have a skilful cook and a beautiful young servant girl since he will take an excess of food and become ill, and will engage in sexual intercourse to excess and become senile.”21 The original Arabic version of this saying made no references to the effects of spices and was simply a warning about the dangers of overeating for those over a certain age. French authors who directly connected it to the consumption of spices of the North African colonised thus consciously or subconsciously contorted the initial meaning of the saying, in accordance with their assumptions about spiciness being the one defining characteristic of Maghrebi food.

• 22 According to the Australian historian Jack Turner, this same idea was also widespread in medieval E (...)
• 23 Ben Ghabrit stated: “Abder-Rerraz offers us, for his part, some aphrodisiacs, which ‘excite, he say (...)
• 24 Abder Rerraz seems to be a misspelling of an Arabic name, probably of Abd al Razzāq. It could not b (...)

28According to Captain Jules Erckmann, Moroccans generally consumed only “exciting” food: “for them, there are only two kinds of food; those that heat up and those that cool down” (Erckmann 1885: 171, emphasis in the original). Spices were interpreted as “heating” substances and in the Muslim world, heat had long been associated with passion and sexuality (Aubaile-Sallenave 1997: 104; Turner 2004: 223-225; Ze’evi 2006: 26, 35).22 Some French observers believed that this heating up was not only a welcome side-effect of the consumption of spices for the colonised, but sometimes one of the motivations behind their consumption. The French physician Édouard-Adolphe Duchesne, for example, set out how both male and female Algerian Muslims were excessively sexual, which explained, from his point of view, the commonness of sex work in Algiers (Duchesne 1853: 17ff). According to him, “The commerce of women is perhaps the only enjoyment they [male Muslim Algerians] abuse”, yet he also detailed that the men turned to aphrodisiacs to increase their sexual prowess. He stated that customers consumed, among other things, “certain aromatic and diffusible preparations” in order to “awaken their desires and to make themselves able to satisfy them”. Duchesne then added: “Pepper, and especially chilli, of which they make such a great use, must contribute to venereal arousal” (Duchesne, 1853: 96f.). Yet apparently, not all North African men took these “preparations” willingly or even consciously. According to the Algerian religious leader Si Kaddour ben Ghabrit, Muslim women prepared these preparations and gave them to their polygamous husbands in secret. He believed that, due to the stark rivalry among wives for the love of their shared husband, wives prepared traditional love potions – of an aphrodisiac quality23 – and used green ginger, nutmeg and pepper in them, in order “to force men to fall madly in love”. Ben Ghabrit attributed this to an author named Abder-Rerraz,24 who had allegedly stated: “‘Eating it [this potion, …] has a wonderful effect on the body!’” (Ben Ghabrit 1917: 129; emphasis in the original).

• 25 For a discussion of this, see, for example: McClintock 1995: 14; Jacob, 2011: 3f.

29According to Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, European authors sexualised and feminised “the Orient”, with the European powers taking the male active role and the “Orient” the feminine, passive, degenerate one.25 This also led to a de-masculinisation of “Oriental” men. In the context of the colonial descriptions of the spice consumption of the colonised, this mechanism seems almost to have been inverted. North African men were, by way of their ability to consume large quantities of fiery foods, seen as having stronger constitutions than French men. Additionally, spices were believed to augment the sex drive of North African men or to help them rekindle it once lost. In a worldview that often viewed strength as a sign of virility, this suggested that North Africans were somewhat more “virile” than European men, shown by their ability to consume quantities of spices that the allegedly more civilised – practically always male – European observers were physically unable to stomach. At the same time, however, this voracious predilection for spices was also seen as weakening male Maghrebi bodies, as it stimulated their already “oversexed” natures, which led to exhaustion, impotence, and their early demise. Yet while North African men were described as losing their virility, due to sexual overexertion, and trying to recover it with the help of spices, they were still framed as more sexually active than the Europeans writing about them.