H

Hungry, horny, happy,
Harissa, Marissa, Larissa,
Hippo, potto, ditto,
Hen, pen, ten,
Halo, holy, hell,
Hubcap, wheel, whorl,
Hot, hearty, holesome
Heron, imus, bosch,
Ho, ho, ho!

Brought to you by a slipstream of consciousness in the groove of the letter H.

هريسة

Harissa

Harissa is good stuff. It's a real-world influencer that turns even the most meh of stuff into good stuff. It even sounds like good stuff, its fun to say Harissa.

Harissa comes from The Maghreb, the pre-national region of north-western Africa. Like The Levant to the East, it is a place in time where definitions were porous, when time took time, and all borders had soft edges.

تونس

Tunisia

Tunisia is the biggest producer of this noble stuff and UNESCO includes Harissa as part of Tunisia's Intangible Cultural Heritage...

Through a compendium of the different oral and intangible treasures of humankind worldwide, the [Intangible Cultural Heritage] programme aims to draw attention to the importance of safeguarding intangible heritage, which UNESCO has identified as an essential component and as a repository of cultural diversity and of creative expression – Wikipedia.

Such a list of intangibles feels like an echo of the ambiguous and evocative Maghreb, which reminds me of our childhood reference to a vague northern place we called Ulaya – now balkanized, bordered, boundaried, and known as the place called Europe.

Harissa Puttanesca with Toasted Almonds.

As always - thanks for reading, and indulging!