Tunisia won the Cous Cous world championship, a competition between 10 countries organized during the Couscoust Fest in San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily, Italy that ended on Sunday.
The recipe presented by Nabil Barkous, who works at the restaurant Joia of chef Pietro Leemann, with the help of chefs Youssef Abdelli and Lamjed Hosni, was the most appreciated by the technical jury among those of the nine other competing nations: Angola, Ivory Coast, Italy, Morocco, Senegal, Spain and the United States.
The jury of experts, chaired by Fiammetta Fadda, a journalist for Panorama, included 14 journalists, chefs and bloggers. The Tunisian recipe ‘Mare Nostrum’ was a couscous with red shrimp, grilled harissa and fennel hummus.
In the 2017 edition, Chefs Bilel Wechtati and Taieb Bouhadra had won the People’s Jury Prize.
The jury referred in their description of the Tunisian winning dish, to “the technical skill in mixing so many ingredients and preparations that could have confused the taster’s palate.” However the result was dazzling as the final dish was characterised by ”a surprising and excellent charm and harmony” in terms of presentation and flavour
The Cous Cous Fest attracted in the town near Trapani thousands of visitors over 10 days including 40 cooking shows.
”Couscous – said the mayor of San Vito Lo Capo Giuseppe Peraino – is the pretext to talk about peace and solidarity of the people under the motto ‘make couscous not war”’.
TunisianMonitorOnline (MNHN)
