How can it be otherwise? Even Mark Bittman the Minimalist proposed couscous' sweet side.
Mr Bittman also reminds that couscous is not a grain, but a semolina pasta. Well, it still feels like a grain to me, all the more reinforced by my favourite film of this year La Graine et Le Mulet (Grain and Mullet) also distributed as Secret of the Grain or more prosaically, Couscous. I watched this film on the plane journey from New York to Paris last May, and over the months scenes of it keep popping into my head. It features couscous, and a fish version, but to say it is a food-centred film will be unfair. It is a family drama, a documentary and a little bit of a thriller. It is gritty, depressing, uplifting, riveting and unforgettable. The scenes of the young girl enjoying her mother's boyfriend's ex-wife's couscous, the dysfunctional family interactions, society's hypocrisies, the final agonisingly long scene and abrupt ending, one cannot be unaffected. See it, please.
