Happy Revolution Day Pied Noirs .... with sardines - Joyeux Jour de la Révolution Pied Noirs ... aux sardines

Today in Algeria is November 1st ... while many parts of the world is getting over Halloween and celebrationg today All Saint's day (Toussaint Rouge or Day of the Dead or All Souls Day also called) here in Algeria ... today this day is commemorated as the Revolution day ... as in the Revolution from French Colonism.
Today,Commemorates the first well coordinated attacks on Nov 1, 1954, begun by the National Liberation Front, against French-operated military installations, public utilities, and communications facilities. celebrated nothing like Independence Day (July 5) today is just a quiet day off from work and school. No special dishes to be cooked and no cakes to be matiulasly hand-formed as with other holidays.


So today, on this day with my daughter I explored the world of French colonism ... my husband, the real 100 percent Algerian was not home to help us in the lesson but Google and books we had at home kept us busy most of the morning! By the evening, on A3 we watched the various parliament organized celebrations in Alger including a fireworks show that my children dearly missed to see ...

And now I pose the question, I guess to myself, Algeria, Algerians, the world: What ever happened to the Pied Noirs of Algeria? This is a question I am sure many history buffs like me wonder about ... yet not many native Algerians would bother with. I love history, so of course I am curious and actively trying to learn more about it ... including Algerian, the country that I live ... the country of my dear husband!


<em>

But for those not familiar with this term in history, here is a brief history lesson:


Pied Noirs (or Black Foots in English) is a universal term given to the inhabitant colonists of Algeria (as well as other areas of North Africa) French nationals and European descents (from Italy, Malta and Spain) that were born in Algeria.


From the French invasion of Algeria in 1830 to the revolution 1962, about 1,025,000 non-military peoples (10percent of the population) accounted for was Pied Noirs. They inhabited mostly the larger cities (and areas) of Oran, Alger and Constantine.

According to Wiki :

After Algeria became independent in 1962, more than one million Pied-Noir
settlers of French nationality migrated to mainland France. Upon arriving, many
felt ostracized by the public perception that they had caused the war and the
political turmoil surrounding the collapse of the French Fourth Republic.
Complicating the situation, the Pieds-Noirs felt that they could not
return to Algeria because of the violence and resentment felt between the
settlers and the native Algerians.In popular culture, the
community is often represented as feeling removed from French culture
while longing for Algeria. Thus, the recent history
of the pieds-noirs has been imprinted with a theme of double alienation
from both their native homeland and their adopted land.

I remember reading an article several years ago, before I lived in Algeria about the number of visas issued to Pied Noirs. 45,000 Visas have been issued to French citizens to visit Algeria since January 2005 . Most have not been since 1962 (independence) and the trips were quite emotional. It has been said many times the Pied Noirs would jumpstart Algerian tourism but somehow I think this is far from the reality!

Many have been discouraged to make the trip but they are so glad they did visit while others said the atmosphere was warm and welcoming.


The youngest Pied Noirs must be 50 years old now by now I would think! I know my husband's family is mixed in with Pied Noirs. I read somewhere that only about 1,000 Pied Noirs actually stayed in Algeria. My late father-in-law being one of them (His French mother immigrant came, married a Muslim native Algerian in the early 1900s), while 1.5 million (that's alot of people) went back to France. Many did not feel 'welcome' back ... even thou much effort was given to make sure they re-intergrated into French life.


Interestingly, I have read that the Pied Noirs who stayed, developed a dialect of French all their own called Pataouète, which spoken by some along the coast of Bab El Oued. It is spoken like a declaration of love of all colourful expressions, of all the languages of Algeria (French, Spanish, Italian and of course Arabe) is melted together. It is not a manner of speaking but an idiom of the villages ... a dialect very much alive (even thou the Pied Noirs have long gone) But unforunately, I have not been able to read much about its linguistic structure. Most memorable for me would be this phrase:

« Le cimetière de Bône, il est tellement beau que,
l'envie de mourir, y te donne ! »

Translation: "The cemetery of Bone (city where I live formly was called Bone) , he's so good that the desire to die, it gives you! » "

Algeria is a unique case when you look at colonization as the French were there for six generations and considered it, not a colony, but part of France. Horrible as that may sound today, it means that for 100 years there were people born and raised there who knew no other home. They were there far longer than my family, and most American families, have been in the US (three generations in my case).

I could be wrong, but today I do not think the children of Pied Noirs long to return to Algeria permanently. It has become a pretty inhospitable place for them in the time since. But, I think Algeria's strength throughout its history has been as a crossroad between Europe and Africa and that it is in its best interest to open up a bit.

I hope those French with family history there are welcome to visit and I hope they do so. As for their life in France, I don't really know.

The late, Yves St Laurent seems to have done well there. But I now several Pied Noir families in the US who could not live in France when they left Algeria simply because they were not French in any cultural way and found France to be a pretty closed society. I would guess many assimilated into France, some did not. And certainly some stayed in Algeria. I have heard story of two French women who stayed even through the civil war, protected by the neighbors they had lived with their entire lives. What a comforting thought!

And also interesting more and more Algerian Jews are returning for visits. President Bouteflikahas given them warm welcomes. Last year about 130 Jews came back to Algeria, meeting in Tlemcen, a city that was once a major center of Jewish life in the Algerian west.

_________________

But enough for the historial ... this is mainly a cooking blog so what is a cooking blog without a recipe? So for today, Revolution day ... I have prepared an old Pied Noir favourite: Sardines à l'escabêche.

• 
  

  Sardines à l'escabêche
  

  • 12 sardines (small)
  • oil for frying
  • roasted red and green peppers
  • roasted or fried potato wedges

  For the escabêche:

  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 8 TBS red grape vinegar
  • 1 Bay leaf
  • 1 sprig of thym
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • salt, pepper
  • AP flour for the fish

1. Clean the sardines,
   rinse with salt water, pat and turn them into a plastic bag with a little
   flour.
2. Shake the bag, sardines
   will be covered with flour.
3. Remove them and pat them
   to remove excess flour.
4. Fry them gently in the
   oil. When properly doées, remove them, let drain well and tamp them in an earthenware bowl.
5. Heat the escabeche mixture and cook over low heat 15mn.
6. Pour the liquid over the sardines.
7. Let cool and refrigerate 48 hours before serving so that the sardines' permeate many spices.

Serve with roasted peppers and potatoes.

Trick:

For variety, you can add slices of lemon confit ranging in escabeche, or the tomato paste, or shallots.

Famous Pied Noirs were (are):

Enrico Macias, singer
Yves Saint-Laurent, fashion designer
Jean-Pierre Bacri, actor
Albert Camus, Nobel Peace Winner and philosopher
Jacques Chirac, former French President
Alain Chabat, actor and director