Ancient Maghreb Flatbread #foodhistory #recipes

did you know that the nomads of North Africa have a 4,000-year-old flatbread tradition welcome back to Ancient Appetites the series where we bring ancient dishes back to life As early as 2,000 BC Amaz tribes across the Maghre prepared simple semolina ds cooked using portable metal plates called tajine stones balancing them directly over coals in the desert wind A practice that’s still alive and well in the southern deserts of Morocco Algeria and Tunisia The recipe I’m cooking is called Makjuba specifically in Algeria but also called Mlewi in Tunisia and Mimmen in Morocco Mahjuba means the veiled one as the thin dough hides deliciousness inside And that deliciousness has definitely changed over time as the most popular makuba is typically stuffed with tomatoes onions and spices some of which wouldn’t have been available until the Columbian Exchange in the mid 1500s No matter what you call this flatbread the earliest recipe we can find for something like it is from the Kab Alabik a 13th century Arab cookbook So the next time you visit the Maghreb grab a bite of history