I know we already schplogged the Dreyfuss affair, but perhaps you didn’t know that Captain Alfred Dreyfus was passionate about food. And much as he loved French food, we was even fonder of specialty dishes from their neighbors to the south, Morocco and Tunisia.
Much later, after the gross unfairness of the trial and the anti-semitism involved became common knowledge, a local restaurant celebrated Dreyfus with a dish called J’accuse-cous-cous.
According to the Times, it seems that in Morocco one may file for divorce based on culinary incompatibility. Moreover it is quite common for Moroccan women to file for divorce citing specific culinary disagreements. What on earth would constitute a “culinary disagreement”, you ask.
Oh, silly things like an argument about how much garlic to use or the proper use of a wooden spoon. Things just get out of hand, tempers rise and unforeseen words are shouted in the heat of the moment. Next thing you know the dishes are flying and divorce papers are being filed. A common complaint among the women is lack of appreciation on the man’s part of her prowess in the kitchen.
“Complain, complain. It’s either too soft or too hard. He is never pleased,” housewife Jamila M reported. “I just can’t take any more of this verbal abuse-cous-cous!”
The dusty white bird silently strapped on a pair of bandoliers, and checked the action on his trusty sixguns. A rivulet of sweat ran slowly down his bill. The sun was high in the western sky, and it was almost as hot here in Tombstone as it had been back in Morocco, where this feud had begun so many years before. No matter. The showdown was finally about to begin, right out on Main Street.
But just as he burst out onto the wooden porch of his creaky hotel, the local lawman intercepted him.
“Well,” said the sheriff, squinting in the glare, “hold up there, pardner. We don’t allow waterfowl to carry guns in this here town, ’specially no-account, immoral furriners such as yourself. I guess you know what I’m a gonna do.”
And without another word he was locked up…
in the loose-goose-calaboose-couscous.
What a scandal it was when it turned out that the new all-vegan hair products for forest animals weren’t made in America, as advertised but actually in north Africa using local grains and foodstuffs.
There was succulent squirrel surprise scrub made mostly of nuts, which was okay. And hare hair gel jelly.
But what about moose mousse cous-cous??
yes I will eat it if it’s green
I will consume it in a toureen
why I”ll devour it tight or loose
I refer of course to Dr Seuss-couscous
Listen, I WAS planning to cook that romantic middle eastern meal for us but I missed the bus and then the dog ate my recipe so I had to go to the Stork Club and that’s why I have lipstick on my collar, see?
I know, I know, it’s a lame excuse-couscous.
What large and weighty Moroccan dish brought Howard Hughes to the Senate floor?
Spruce-goose-cous-cous
I really shouldn’t have gone to that Tunisian dive bar. The drinks were suspicious and I’m sure the food was off. Boy, am I ever queasy.
That’s the last time I’m getting the chartreuse-cous-cous.
Stop that man! He stole my grandmother’s prized Moroccan recipes.
Now you’ve done it. Now he’s on the loose-couscous . . .
Oy, gevalt. Papoosecouscous?
O for Olaf has gone too far. I mean, I’m not going to Herbert Hoover it. But please. Do us all a favor. Native American couscous?
I say it’s Tunisian. But who even cares if it was the Etruscans, the Romans, the Moroccans, or whoever. ENOUGH ALREADY!
Let’s just call a trucecouscous.
