Tharid
Region: Tunisia
Category: Soups
Season: Any
Difficulty: Easy
Culinary historian and cook
alike will find this soup one of the most intriguing. The references in all the classical lexica
describe tharīd(a)  (3)LO.jpg)
as a kind of bread
soup or a large earthenware bowl. It has
been described as one of the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite dishes, in reference
to his saying that his wife 'Aisha held a place among women that tharīd held among food.1 Tharīd
was a food of the Quraysh tribe of the Arabian Peninsula in early Islamic times
and, in what might be an apocryphal story, Hāshim, Muhammad’s
great-grandfather, had cooked this dish unknown to non-Arabs on a visit to
Syria for the Byzantine emperor who like it so much that he was persuaded to
grant the Quraysh mercantile priviledges.2 Al-Muqaddasī, the famed
Arab traveler who was born in Jerusalem in A. D. 947, says that he ate tharīd(a) with the monks, probably
meaning the Chaldean monks of Iraq, so the word may be originally Aramaic,
Syriac, or Chaldean. 3 The trīd mentioned by cookbook writers Paula
Wolfert and Zette Guinaudeau-Franc as the basṭīla
of the poor in Fès appears to be derived from the word tharīda. 4 The
role of bread (or crêpes as
Guinaudeau-Franc not inaccurately calls trīd 5)
is prominent and supports Wolfert’s claim that the Palestinian musakhkhan
is related because of the use of the very thin crêpe-like flatbread. The role of wheat in general in tharīda has led the linguist Professor
Dionisius Agius to wonder if there may be a relationship between tharīda and the early Arab form of
macaroni known as iṭrīya. Perhaps the original tharīda was really a soup of pasta
secca and not bread soup. 6 In any case, today it is made of
bread in Tunis and is a satisfying meal.
[photo: Clifford A. Wright]
Yield: Makes 8 servings
Preparation Time: 1:15 hours
¼ cup cooked chickpeas, drained
Bouquet garni, tied with kitchen string, consisting of 1 celery stalk and 5 sprigs fresh parsley
1 young chicken, quartered or 2 Cornish hens (about 3 ½ pounds total)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons clarified butter
2 ½ quarts water
1 ½ teaspoons bahārāt (see link below)
2 large eggs
Juice from 1 lemon
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
About ½ loaf day-old French baguette, cut into croûtons
1. Put the chickpeas, bouquet garni, chicken or Cornish hens, salt and pepper, clarified butter, and water in a large pot and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer (just so the water is shimmering) for 1 hour.
2. Remove and discard the bouquet garni. Remove the chicken from the pot. When it is cool enough to handle, separate the meat from the bones. Lightly sprinkle the chicken meat with the bahārāt and salt to taste and set aside.
3. Beat the eggs in a bowl with a quarter of the lemon juice. Whisk a few tablespoons of hot soup into the beaten eggs. Transfer the beaten eggs back to the soup, whisking quickly so they don’t curdle. Keep the soup warm over a very low heat.
4. In a large skillet or casserole, heat ¼ cup of the olive oil and cook the chicken pieces or hens with the remaining lemon juice over a high heat for 1 to 2 minutes, turning to brown all sides. Transfer to a serving platter as the pieces finish cooking. Add the remaining ¼ cup olive oil to the pan, reduce the heat to medium, and cook the bread croûtons in the olive oil and leftover juices until lightly golden on all sides, about 3 or 4 minutes.
5. Place the croûtons at the bottom of serving bowls and ladle the soup on top. Serve the chicken on the side or with the soup.
Variation:
Note:
1. The reference can be found in Wensinck, A.J. Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane: les six livres, le musnad al-darimi, le muwatta de Malik, le musnad de Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992, vol. 1, p. 290.
2. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., S.v. “Ghidā'”; Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2004: 109, 112.
3. Agius, Dionisius A. and Richard Hitchcock, eds. The Arab Influence in Medieval Europe: Folia Scholastica Mediterranea. Reading: Ithaca Press, 1984: 271-73.
4. Wolfert, Paula. Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco. New York: Harper and Row, 1973: 119; Guinaudeau, Z. Fès vu par sa cuisine. Rabat: E. Laurent, 1962: 57, 157.
5. Guinaudeau-Franc, Zette. Les secrets des cuisines en terre marocaine. Paris: Jean-Pierre Taillandier, 1981.
6. Professor Dionysius Agius, University of Exeter, correspondence with the author, June 13, 1994.
Posted: 03/01/2011
Needed Recipes:
Referenced Recipes: