Tajine Tafraoute Project

Place: Amanouz Café, Northampton, MA. Birthplace of the Tajine Tafraoute Project.

Tajine Partner: Tim Horvath, short-story writer. (We’d met that week at Wellspring House, an artist/writer’s retreat).

How I found out about it: from Tim, who’d eaten there two days earlier while researching a story.

I’ll admit: I was a bit disappointed as I walked to the counter. Half the menu was taped onto the wall (written on bits of colored construction paper), and the other half was written on a chalkboard. From the outside, this place had looked like a sit-down restaurant. And, for a dish as serious as a tajine, it seemed weird to pay first and wait to have it delivered, café-style.

I know. I was taking things waaaaay too seriously. But cut me some slack. I was primed for a religious experience.

I told the Moroccan guy behind the counter that the best meal of my life had been a tajine in Tafraoute. (I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant.) He nodded. He said he was from Tafraoute. Then, we both smiled. There wasn’t much to say.

There were no free seats, aside from a tiny table squished next to a refrigerator, so I squeezed in and hoped that I wouldn’t have to get up to pee during the meal. I glanced at the steaming plates of food on everyone else’s table, but I didn’t see the familiar clay tajine pot anywhere. This was disturbing.

I remembered that real tajines usually cook for a long time: about hour or so. This Amanouz Café couldn’t possibly serve up the real thing. (This, of course, is when Tim suggested that I embark on a quest to replicate the original tajine Tafraoute experience.)

Finally, after about twenty minutes, the tajines arrived, served in clay pots. The waitress lifted the conical tops and we dug in.

My tajine was delicious! I had it served over rice — totally inauthentic, I know — but it was moist all the way down to the bottom, with enough juices to flavor the rice. The vegetables (sautéed onions, thin slices of tomato, chopped carrots, green pepper, chunks of potato) were the perfect consistency, soft and easy to cut with a fork. There were four gigantic meatballs, each infused with an amazing array of garlicky spices (not too hot though — just right). The tajine was topped off with a cooked egg and a scattering of green olives.

I ate heartily, but only made it through half the dish. Good Jew that I am, I professed my wish to “get it to go.” But, like an even better Jew, I ended up digging in for a second round.

Rating: 8/10

An excellent tajine. Not transcendental, though. And I certainly couldn’t have had a spiritual experience squeezed up against a fridge.

Restaurant details:

Amanouz Café
44 Main St
Northampton, MA 01060
(413) 585-9128
www.amanouz.com

Leave a Reply