Who among us who are fifty and older don’t remember the bread lovingly baked by our mothers, usually for an entire week at a time? Bread scented with Nigelle sinouj and with sesame seeds, put to rise in copper basins (“Nhass”) or wooden bowls (“Mida”), both 50 cm in diameter, and carried on the head to the local baker’s wood-burning oven where bread, cakes, and other baked specialties of the Tunisian cuisine could be finished.

Each family was careful to mark its bread with some symbol in the dough that would tell everyone to whom the baked bread should be returned. In some neighborhoods, a “tarrah,” (baker’s helper who put the bread in the oven – “koucha” – and removed it once done) would deliver the finished goods to the appropriate house.

Who else can fail to remember our father who started already in the 1950s buying the family’s bread in the Souk (Bab Jelladine or Bab Tournes, sold by weight), and carefully folding it away under his robes because it was considered indecent not to bake one’s own bread at that time?

There was also “Kobz el bounou” distributed with a ration of milk and cheese to the poorer inhabitants of the town, donated by USAID (“kelalla pluriel de kellil”) associated with the words “takaddamat mina chaab ameriki.”

Kairouanese bread is the most famous bread in Tunisia, the most flavorful, lightest, and crunchiest. Bread has been baked here for at least 13 Centuries (when the city was founded by Okba Ibn nafaa), and probably for much longer than that considering the area was also inhabited or visited by Romans, Carthaginians, Berbers, etc. Please see History of Tunisia on this website for greater detail on former Kairouanese populations and influences.

Already in the 14th Century, according to Al-Tujibide, Kairouanese were making “Miawi,” very fine, thin wafers, somewhat like flaky pastry pancakes, by mixing semolina and mixing it with a great quantity of water. Yeast was not used. The dough was then shaped so that it would have multiple layers of “leaves.”

Bread, therefore, has always occupied a primordial place and importance in the food and culture of Tunisia. Below are types of traditional bread, in the past baked in wood-burning ovens. In spite of today’s electric ovens, old-style tar-burning furnaces remain in use.

Mohamed Rebai
info@kairouan.org

Siniya is bread that rises in metal molds and whose crust is brushed with oil. Chiha is the most famous.
Chaouaya baked on the floor of the oven, is very light and the most popular. Mida is bread sprinkled with semolina. Like Siniya, the dough was originally made at home, then baked by the local baker.
Mida pain saupoudré de semoule. à l'origine tout comme le Siniya c'est un pain fait maison qu'on confie au boulanger du coin
Kebir is baked twice, or even four times over. Very crunchy and beloved. Majamaa is a large bread formed from balls of dough.
Majamaa pain de grande dimension formé de boules de pâtes
Bzezel is bread served at the wedding ceremony, it’s made of little pointed puffs of dough.
Mbassess bread of different dimensions, made with olive oil, smen, and sometimes even mouton fat.
Kamh is a full grain bread made with non husked wheat.
Mjarreh is similar to Chaway, but is lacey in appearance.
BIzzitoune is bread with black olives.
Chiir is full-grain rye bread.
Bochmat is very crunchy bread baked on the floor of the oven.
Tabouna (Galette) pain de campagne cuit  au four circulaire en terre cuite
Ftira Ghanay is country bread baked in a clay tajine pot.
Mlawi should be served warm with butter and honey or powdered sugar. These small breads can also be dipped in melted butter and honey.