Couscous seasoning: properties and benefits:
Couscous is a simple food whose nutritional qualities are identical to common pasta, since couscous is made with the same ingredients, water and semolina durum wheat. Couscous is rich in carbohydrates, proteins and starch, as well as B vitamins and vitamin A.
Couscous also contains some important mineral salts, such as potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and calcium. Precisely because it is rich in fibre, couscous has high digestive properties, which stimulate the intestine and help the body get rid of harmful elements that can encourage the onset of tumors. Even though couscous has the same nutritional qualities as wheat, it has dietary properties because the quantity of water absorbed is far greater, and this increases the volume of the grains and also the sense of satiety conferred by this dish.
In short, 40 g of couscous seasoned with fish and vegetables are enough to obtain a tasty and satiating dish, well balanced and perfectly in line with the objectives of a diet aimed at lose weight. Furthermore, couscous contains few lipids and is already seasoned with a drop of oil. In fact, very little is needed to enrich couscous, and even with just a few condiments it is possible to create a tasty and dietary dish.
Rich in dietary fibre, highly digestible, couscous represents a moderator of the glycemic index, as well as an excellent energy supplier. Couscous brings benefits to the body because it does not contain cholesterol but instead contains a good quantity of proteins. Excellent for including it in the diet when you do physical activity and waste energy, couscous is a food suitable for dieting, because it fills you up very quickly and has few lipids, mostly unsaturated, and also few calories. Excellent to consume instead of pasta, it has half the calories of normal pasta and rice and is ideal to include in a low-calorie diet.
It can be a food compared in importance to that of pasta in the Mediterranean diet, from which however it differs because it has a caloric intake equal to half. Also containing a good amount of fibre, it is indicated in cases of constipation and also to maintain a good balance of the intestinal bacterial flora. The transit is favored by the intake of liquids linked to fibre, which also inhibit the creation of gas and digestive problems.
It is also an important source of vitamins such as A and all those in group B, which is essential for pregnant women and for the proper functioning of the immune system at all ages. Couscous does not lack minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus which help to make it a complete, nutritious and light food.
According to some research it seems that it is also useful in preventing some of the tumors that affect the intestinal tract, in particular the colorectal one. Couscous is among the foods recommended for this purpose also by the World Cancer Research Fund.
Origins and notes on history:
Couscous is a typical food of North Africa, obtained from durum wheat ground in a "coarse" way, married with a soup of herbs and roots cut into pieces, and flavored with pieces of meat and oil. Prepared in special overlapping terracotta pots, called cuscussiera, where the vegetables and pieces of meat cook in the lower part, and the semolina boils in the upper part (with holes).
This preparation represents the culture of the Berber people who practiced pastoralism and only had grain available to crush, sift, work by hand, and dry, then collect in large bags of canvas and place them in the coolest part of the tent. For centuries couscous has fed nomads, whose women used to gather in groups to prepare it.
There is growing evidence that the typical cooking process of couscous, in particular the steaming of the grains on the broth in a special pot, may have originated before the tenth century in an area of West Africa spanning present-day Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. During a trip to the Mali area he once observed rice couscous (1350), while in what is now Mauritania he received millet couscous.
Today in the Maghreb countries, couscous is brought to the table in the evening, a tradition that has its origins in the fact that nomadic peoples consumed the meal in the evening, when they stopped for the night under the tent.
But in Morocco it is consumed in the early afternoon, for lunch. Tradition dictates that we eat all together around a single plate using our hands. Before starting the couscous-based meal, "Biss" is whispered 'mi Allah", a prayer of blessing for the table. To serve yourself, you do not use cutlery but unleavened bread. The social value of this dish is strong: it is eaten only together with the family or with those considered part of the community. The newlyweds of the peoples of the Maghreb on the occasion of large wedding banquets receive the "permitted couscous" as a symbolic conclusion dish, which authorizes them to indulge in the follies of the first night, as long as they keep some to offer to the poor.
In this area of North Africa, couscous also has a variant suitable for celebrating the arrival of a new child. On the day of birth, the woman's family sets the table for the mother with energetic and restorative dishes and among these there is a couscous with a mixture of spices capable of promoting milk, an essential nourishment for the unborn child. Prepare and consume couscous in the Islamic world is a religious "rite".
Often offered to the poor on the occasion of almsgiving, it is also the traditional dish for Friday lunch (the day of collective Muslim prayer) and on special occasions, such as the feast of the return of the pilgrims from Mecca. The Koran states that couscous should be eaten with only the three fingers of the right hand, to distinguish itself from the devil who eats it with one, from the Prophet with two and from the greedy with five. The Arabs first spread this dish in the Mediterranean, then between the 1600s and the end of the 18th century, the coral fishermen, the coral fishermen of Genoese origins, who lived on the island of Tabarca (off Tunis), also took part.
These seafaring men, also taking on board a large quantity of kuskussù among their supplies, made it "pilgrimage" to Spain, France, Sardinia, Liguria etc..
In In Sicily, couscous arrived massively in the second half of the 19th century, brought by workers from the San Vito Lo Capo-Mazara del Vallo area who went to the Tunisian coast. Dish of peace among the peoples of the Mediterranean, at the end of the nineteenth century it became the subject of literary narration in the accounts of travels made in Northern Africa; the famous Edmondo de Amicis in one of his writings recalled "couscous" as a dish of princes and people.
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