Same Dude Every Day: The Restaurants of Tunis

Living in a hotel for over two weeks (a situation I hope to resolve soon), I'm forced to eat at restaurants a lot. This has been a good experience for the most part, as I've tried most all the Tunisian staples as well as Tunisian takes on pizza, doner, and other non-indigenous foods. Let's say the former have been quite satisfying and the latter... less so. Apart the effects of undercooked eggs on my stomach, one aspect of the Tunisian culinary experience that has stood out is the obvious difference between how restaurants are staffed here and how it's done back in the States.

Every time I walk by a typical blue collar restaurant here, no matter the time of day, I see the same people at work. It's usually a bare bones crew - one cook, one waiter, and then another guy who seems to be somewhere in between. Everyone in this industry seems to work very long hours, seven days a week, and his place in the restaurant is clearly a defining aspect of his (and it's usually a man) life. You don't see high school or college age people at work in restaurants, with the exception of a few fast food places on Avenue Bourguiba. (None of which, it bears mentioning, are American chains. McDonald's and Burger King are not present here.)

One gets the impression that each restaurant is a family-run organization, and that means that several members of the family will be there at all times. The concept of who exactly works there and who doesn't, however, is sometimes vague. I asked for a cup of tea with my meal at a welcoming but very simple place near my hotel. The waiter pondered this, looked at first as though he'd say no, but then changed his mind. About five minutes later, someone I had noticed in the restaurant when I had first arrived came in the door with a plastic cup of tea in his hand. Where it came from, I have no idea. The tea courier seemed to be a friend or relative of the waiter, who could mobilize him in the event that something needed to be procured from outside. Maybe he got a small payment for this, but maybe it was just a way to be helpful.

It's clear that the absolute minimum number of staff must be used at most restaurants - I imagine hiring an extra waiter, especially one who is inexperienced or inefficient, could lead to higher operational costs that could force food prices to be raised. In Tunisia, especially at a working-class place, that would likely mean that customers trying to stretch their meager incomes in an inflationary environment would take their business somewhere more affordable. Hiring in shifts or having multiple cooks is just not the way to run a successful business unless you are catering to the posh elements of Tunisian society or going after European tourists. Just get a guy who can cook, a guy who can seat and serve the customers, and someone else to fill in the gaps, and you're set.

As a newcomer to the city, I must say that it's comforting to find the same waiter greeting me every time I return to a restaurant. The atmosphere at the non-touristy places is very casual, and you'll find that the large menu posted outside has little to no relationship with what is actually available. Just chat with your waiter a minute, he'll tell you the handful of things you can actually order, and that's that. Prices seem to be sort of improvised after the meal, and although I sometimes suspect a tourist surcharge, it's usually so negligible that I don't bring it up. I've also learned that an order of fish is invariably the whole fish, staring at you while you dissect it. It's a little more intense than getting a trout filet at a seafood restaurant in the States, but once you try a perfectly grilled fish here (there seem to be two kinds commonly served, but I have no idea what they are), dusted with cumin, you would never complain. Just save some for the cat watching you from under the table as you eat.

The Cats of Tunisia

Although I am a dude, I am not afraid to admit that I like cats. Go ahead and judge me for this, but I refuse to apologize. Tunis is filled with cats - they run through the streets in small groups, emerging out of alleyways and crowding near warm buildings on cold nights. They fill an odd niche here, as they are basically what we in the States would term "strays," yet none of them seem to be haggard and beat-up like the stinky screaming creatures I would see in my Brooklyn backyard. Unlike their American counterparts, these cats seem to be simultaneously owned by no one and everyone.

The garbage cats of Carthage.

While cats are ubiquitous in New York City bodegas, I was quite surprised to find them roaming restaurants here in Tunis. Most eateries keep their doors open during the day, and these confident Arab felines will simply stroll on in and sniff out the customer with the tastiest dish. I eat a lot of fish in Tunisia, so quite often this means I capture their attention while I dine. The cats are not timid, and will go straight up to you, trying to capture your attention from your right side, then your left. If you have yet to give in, it might spend a bit of time under your chair, contemplating the appropriate way to procure a bit of your meal. After a while, it will start to climb onto your lap, and you have to be pretty persistent before it finally gives up and tries someone else. They have a fairly good success rate of getting at least a bite of someone's dinner, and I imagine this is why the cats of Tunis don't seem terribly malnourished.

Last night was cold and rainy, and I came back to the hotel only to find a cat sitting elegantly on one of the chairs in the lobby. This is an extremely clean and well-kept hotel, and I was surprised they allowed one of these creatures of the street to hang out there. In awkward elementary school Arabic, I asked about the cat. The guy at the lobby matter of factly said "bard," meaning "cold." It was cold outside, so he let in the cat - why would I even bother asking?

These businesses don't seem to own the cats, and will from time to time shoo them out the door, but there ultimately seems to be a sense of responsibility for them. They are needy denizens of Tunis, and they could use a hand once in a while. My kind of town.

Lablabi on a Friday Afternoon

This morning, after meeting my Arabic teacher for the first time over breakfast, she and I walked down Avenue Bourguiba toward the old city. This route takes you directly past the French embassy, centrally located and a lasting reminder of the days of French rule. Back in the late 1800s, the embassy and the catholic cathedral were built across the street from each other on the new, European style avenue stretching eastward from the old, winding, crowded Medina that was the extent of Tunis for centuries. The French quickly filled up acres of marshland with new roads arranged in a grid, and the Europeans promptly left their quarters in the old city for new digs along the colonial avenues. Today, however, the French seem very much put in their place, the embassy surrounded by thick rolls of razor wire and gobs of police and military personnel filling the streets surrounding the compound. The streets around there are crowded with shoppers, and they must be careful not to rip their plastic bags on these intimidating barricades.

As we went our separate ways, she reminded me that today was Friday and that protests in front of the embassy were quite likely after afternoon prayers - perhaps it was a good day for me to grab a nice lunch and then hang around the hotel for the rest of the day? I'm aware that most Tunisians assume me to be French, which is quite understandable here but somehow slightly offensive to a proud Yankee. The French intervention in Mali, which from what I gather is nearly universally supported in the US and Europe, has a great many detractors here who see it as yet another instance of harmful Western meddling in African affairs. The subsequent troubles in Algeria represent the complicated consequence these actions can bring about. While I honestly don't think much could have happened to me in Tunis this afternoon even in a worst-case scenario, I had done my share of touristy things over the past few days and was fine to take it easy rather than risk being yelled at by angry protesters.

So, I aimed to find a satisfying lunch that would tide me over for the rest of the day, and I looked to spend as few dinars as possible. In Tunisia, that leads you to Lablabi (لبلابي).

Lablabi is the ultimate traditional peasant food in Tunisia, and can be found all around Tunis at any restaurant or street stand displaying a pyramid of ceramic bowls. There are two sizes, although both are quite substantial. The buyer has to do most of the work, as the bowl is given to you with two big chunks of chewy bread which you must tear into tiny pieces. Once you're done, the bowl is filled to the brim. The cook then takes the bowl from you and pours on chickpeas and a healthy scoop of the broth they've been simmering in.  Atop this he will put olive oil, a TON of cumin, garlic, an egg, and harissa, a chili paste that is ubiquitous in Tunisia. Additionally, you can ask for tuna, which I did. I was at a relatively classy place, so they threw in some capers as well. The bowl is given back to you, and the diner must go back to work, using two big spoons to thoroughly mix it all into a uniform looking dish. Basically, you get soggy bread with a bunch of stuff in it, but when done well it can be surprisingly good. The flavor is subtle, but the spice of the harissa and the richness of the egg and tuna make for a very satisfying, if simple, meal. I leisurely enjoyed it while the restaurant played the radio feed of a mosque service over its speakers.

The last few bites of lablabi.

The large bowl seems to contain about as much as an adult male's stomach can possibly hold, and the last few spoonfuls required summoning all my manly strength. After scraping the last of the lablabi from the bowl, I was thoroughly slaked and sated. Price of this meal, along with a coke and a likely tourist surcharge? About two and a half bucks, and I know that I could have gotten it far cheaper elsewhere in the city.

Although I was curious to see what was going on in town that afternoon, the lablabi helped convince me it would be best to relax a bit and nap off some of this starchy feast. I felt a long way from European interventions in Mali, kidnappings in Algeria, and unrest in North Africa. I'll read the paper tomorrow and see what I missed.

The More You Learn, the Less You Know

Searching for a clear narrative to guide my understanding of Tunisian current affairs has already, after only a handful of conversations, proved to be a nearly impossible task. Interpretations vary greatly of how far the country has come, how things are likely to progress, and the nature and dynamics of any changes that may (or may not) have already taken place. I've learned that the black and white dynamics of political contestation and social strife one gets from reading English-language news reports about Tunisia really don't seem to hold much water when one talks to the people living this on the ground.

The biggest surprise has been the clear belief of some intelligent and thoughtful people here that ultimately things are no better than under the Ben Ali dictatorship, and likely considerably worse. Sure, you can now say whatever you want and the number of media outlets has exploded in the last two years, but the basic problems remain the same, yet are aggravated by inflation, scarcity, and a lack of investment and tourist dollars. This is not a longing for the return of the old regime, but rather a sense that the fundamental goals of the revolution were not achieved. The revolution was spurred on by youth demanding jobs and dignity, but they are now back home looking for jobs while an entirely different group of people has filled the power vacuum Ben Ali's exit created. Free expressions of faith was never a big problem, according to some, as people would worship however they wished at home in spite of government regulations. Now the ruling party is defined by religion and governing more or less as Ben Ali did, missing the point of the revolution. There is real disappointment, even disgust, at the current government, most of whose members had been in jail or abroad for years, removed from Tunisian society, and now find themselves operating the same institutions left behind by the dictatorship in much the same way. They are seen as seeking merely to consolidate their power and create a political system conducive to their own success, while addressing none of the fundamental problems bogging down the economy. 10 dinars use to last you a week, and now it won't even get you through the day, while the government is going broke. For all his faults, this never happened under Ben Ali. Ennadha is widely disliked by secular Tunisians, but this seems due primarily to their poor performance over the last two years, not their attitude toward religion in society.

The influence of the Salafis is far from clear, although no one I've talked to likes them, and most are quite dismissive of them as a group. Some see at least a small potential for them to derail the process, while others see them as incapable of seriously challenging the fundamentally secular dynamics that drove the revolution. Overall, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of worry about their potential to instigate violence, and the security situation in general seems to be regarded as something that is very much exaggerated in the Western media, whose coverage discourages tourists from visiting and investors from approaching the country. The fact that coverage of violence and dissent was suppressed under the dictatorship means that there now falsely appears to be an escalation of unrest, which is likely untrue.

Civil society was cited by some as a major driver behind the revolution, working underground to eventually unseat the regime, and a key force for progress going forward, but others have focused on how underdeveloped it is and how civil society groups tend to lack any real ideological heft due to decades of restrictions on their operations. Their role over the coming months and years seems quite unclear.

I've only been talking to people here for the last few days, but every conversation I have challenges my preconceptions of the facts of the ground and the dynamics of transition in post-revolution societies. Indeed, I have quickly come to question whether this revolution really succeeded in accomplishing that much at all. While Westerners view freedom of speech as a fundamental pillar of a healthy society, spending time here may illustrate that it alone cannot fix deep-seated economic and social problems in a developing state. Talk is one thing, but it is action that Tunisians now crave.

Two Years On

Today, I ventured into the heart of Tunis to take in the commemoration of the revolution's two-year anniversary. There was a palpable sense of pride in the country and what it had accomplished, with many Tunisians draped in flags and bearing all manner of red and white regalia. The atmosphere was largely relaxed, with the cafes along Bourguiba Avenue, Tunis's main drag, filled to the brim and the crowd slowly meandering down the street while chants and songs periodically emerged from the crowd. Even with my rudimentary knowledge of Arabic, however, it was quite clear that few people here were blindly celebrating the new-found freedom of their state. Many of the signs emphasized dissatisfaction felt toward the performance of the government dominated by the Islamist Ennahda party, with expressions of the considerable progress yet to be made in becoming a true democracy. This secular opposition, however, was quite diverse, complete with a large contingent of more radical folks described to me as "leftists." The most fascinating scene was near the large tower at the eastern end of the avenue, where a line of police officers separated the secular UGTT trade union presence from a Salafi rally, where clerics addressed a crowd of more conservative Muslims. Walking from one end of the city's main drag to the other, the diversity and complexity of Tunisian society was apparent, but while these groups may have conflicting ideologies, today they seem to have peacefully coexisted. It was a day for embracing a common commemoration of what the country has gone through, even if very different perspectives toward the last two years compete for attention.

The security presence was strong, and did not create the impression that the state's instruments of power were now in happy communion with the masses. Ever since I arrived, several ominous military vehicles have been stationed on a razor wire-encircled median in the street between the Cathedral and the French Embassy, which also happens to be completed surrounded by razor wire, as is the Ministry of Interior building several blocks away. Tunisians are still jumpy when it comes to the police, as I learned while walking back toward my hotel through a side street. People started running past me, and soon most everyone on the street was doing the same, some with a look of real distress on their faces. The two Tunisians I was with brushed it off, however, saying that just happens nowadays, with even the slightest bit of yelling between youth and the police spurring such reactions.

I was lucky to meet up with one of my Tunisian contacts who had helped me plan my stay here, as well as with an English teacher friend of his. These two offered heaping quantities of their country's legendary hospitality and friendliness, complete with a delicious meal of classic Tunisian dishes. While it is clear that they greatly value the progress made in the past two years, there are many concerns harbored by secular educated Tunisians. The Ennadha party has not adequately engaged in dialogue with the opposition and politics is largely adversarial, economic growth remains stunted relative to what they believe can be attained, entrepreneurism and government efforts to promote business remain very underdeveloped, and the diversion of Tunisian staple goods, especially milk, to higher-priced Libya creates scarcity and inflation in Tunisia, which unlike its immediate neighbors is not blessed with oil money. It is clear that the process begun two years ago is not over, and promises to move slowly, with stops and starts. There is a strong belief, however, that civil society, which worked underground to unseat Ben Ali, will continue to drive Tunisia forward.

For the first time, I was able to walk through the streets without being targeted by struggling entrepreneurs looking to secure some of my dinars in a climate where tourism is far lower than its historic norm. "Today," I was told, "is not about money."