Tunisian food is in a class of its own. Id say the comparable cuisine would be Indian or Thai for flavour, but in Tunisia it is rare to have a sweet flavour in the dishes. Most dishes are cooked in “marqa” which translates to mean: sauce. I would say its an adaptation of Italian pasta sauce, a delicious garlicky tomato based sauce, that everything is sautéed in. But there is a big difference in the sauce and this is the secret ingredient of Tunisia: HARISSA. Harissa is made from dried red chilli that are then crushed until they are a fine paste. No meal is complete without this marqa. Dishes are named based on the ingredients. Most times the only difference between the dishes is what’s inside the marqa. These dishes are traditionally eaten using bread to scoop the food with marqa. So traditionally no cutlery is used. The baguette was probably the most influential change to Tunisian culture when the Tunisians were occupied by France. Baguettes are crucial to meals here to the degree a family of 4 may eat 4 baguettes in 1 day if not more. My personal issue with Tunisia has been the lack of nutritional understanding and the increase of diabetes due to the intake of incredibly delicious, yet potently sweet homemade strawberry juice and lemonade, the incredibly delicious pastries and baklava, the sweet coffees, teas, croissants, nutella crepes and of course the BAGUETTE. The odds are stacked against themselves being healthy which so much delicious food to go around. There is a movement now towards healthier food, but the love affair with bread is a hard tie to break. My aim with this food blog is to share with you, how I still eat Tunisian food but have altered the dishes to be more health conscious and diabetic friendly.