From Culinary Tourism and Curiosity to Comfort Food: North African food in Wisconsin (April 22, 2017)

I wandered into Zuzu Café 3 years ago when I was visiting my two sons in Madison, Wisconsin. Located next to the zoo (free admission), we went in to get coffee and a sandwich. Their menu, though, caught my eye—North African breakfast and other specialties. Of course, I was curious and had to try the breakfast, lablabi, a bowl of beans topped with a fried egg and harissa (chili) sauce. Delicious!

 Unexpectedly, I found that I was spending a good deal of time in Madison when my oldest son was diagnosed with 4^th stage colon cancer. Healthy and fit, a life long vegetarian and vegan, and only 30, the diagnosis came out of the blue. It now meant 7-hour drives from home to be able to be there when needed. Friends put me up—and nurtured and distracted me with music, food, conversation, and friendship—and I often myself exploring both the incredible diversity of food venues in Madison and the wonderful parks (with free public beaches for swimming!!).

I went back to Zuzu several times to try other items on the menu, which now leans to sandwiches and salads. During one of these trips, I was working on editing and writing entries for the Ethnic American Food Today: A Cultural Encyclopedia, a massive 2-volume project with an additional cookbook, Ethnic American Cooking: Recipes for Living in a New World. I realized that information was lacking for some of the North African entries, so I headed over to Zuzu. The owner, Sabri Darsouni, was born in Algeria and came to the US 25 years ago. He was more than happy to help me, explaining that Tunisian and Algerian food shared many commonalities—including influences from Italian colonization—but that Tunisian dishes were distinctive in their reddish color and their use of tomato paste. He also pointed out that the food fit more closely with other Mediterranean cuisines than with African or Middle Eastern, even though politically, culturally, and geographically Algeria is frequently lumped in with those cultures. An interesting point that I’ll follow up another time. 

I approached Zuzu very differently this time I visited (April 2017). I drove up just to spend the Easter-Passover weekend with sons. We had a wonderful day and a half of going to their favorite vegetarian restaurant, watching movies, and talking. Then, on Sunday, instead of the anticipated trip to a meadow where my oldest had been working on ecological restoration projects, we took him to the hospital instead. It’s been 7 days now, and he’s still here, stabilized, but still weak and in pain.

During the times that I’m not sitting by his bedside, I’ve gone over to Zuzu several times for coffee, breakfast, and a sandwich. Instead of the curiosity that first took me there, it was the familiarity and friendly welcome that brought me back. Life feeds into scholarship, and vice versa. This time I have with me the book on Comfort Food that I recently edited with Michael Owen Jones. I showed it to Sabri, and he started musing about how Algerian food—and traditional food in general—was always comforting. It’s only with modern conveniences and modern stresses that we eat food out of season, from factories, and without thought of it being comforting. I add my own thoughts that at least some of that stress is due to the current administration’s attitudes towards anyone different from their own narrow conception of who can be an American. Zuzu displays a sign next to its door stating that everyone is welcome and that there is no Islamaphobia—and any other phobias—inside. That welcome makes the food even more comforting to me, to know that I am eating food that was once “foreign” to me, but now familiar, and that it was prepared by like-minded people who also want to approach others with compassion, respect, and understanding. That comforts!