Before I was married, I would spend a lot of time speaking to my soon to be wife about her and her culture. Although I knew many things about Morocco I was always interested in learning more. A lot of times we would speak about food. Having travelled many times to Morocco I thought I knew everything, boy was I wrong. Morocco is more than just couscous and tajine. One dish we spoke about was something called rfisa. I asked my wife what is this dish. Her response was ‘its really good’.
Since she didn’t want to explain further I decided I would try researching this dish. I would be travelling to see her soon and I know one of these days I will have to eat it. This is what I found as the definitions of rfisa:
- A sort of pudding made with bread, milk, and butter
- A kind of soup made for dogs from bones bread etc.
- carcass, remains of an animal
- to tear to pieces, to make a wreck (this definition uses the verb dar as in: dar rfisa f and when used in this construction it refers to someone)
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From the definitions rfisa didn’t look so appetizing, especially when thinking about a soup made for dogs
When I went to Morocco, I stayed by my wife’s family and one day they asked me if I would like to eat rfisa the next day. Everyone looked at me as if this was some major decision. I said yes thinking that I should at least try it. The kids looked so happy when I said yes. I was thinking why are they so happy to eat dog soup? Finally the day came and the dish was prepared. The first thing I noticed was the dish was not a soup or a pudding.
If you look at the picture, you will see it’s actually a bunch of food mixed into one dish. You will find beans chicken, vegetables and other foods all mixed into this dish. If you’re interested in this or other Moroccan recipes there is a cool cookbook you can purchase right here. One particular thing you find is msemen. For those of you who don’t know msemen is a mix between pancake and bread. Normally you eat this in the morning with cheese. Well in the rfisa the msemen is torn into pieces. The rfisa was delicious but the interesting thing was definitions to the word rfisa. The last definition means to tear to pieces. I am not 100% sure but I think this may of been how the dish received its name. I would of never thought that out of the 4 definitions the dish would get its name from something not connected with food. I guess in the future I have to keep an open mind when it comes to things I do not know.
Just some food for thought.