Since like Clairobscur I’m French I’ve decided to bravely ignore the ironic comments of my mom about this couscous question and to snap a few pics of the kind we had laying there:
http://membres.lycos.fr/lazzftm/sdmb/couscous.jpg
(with a tablespoon, for size comparison purpose)
http://membres.lycos.fr/lazzftm/sdmb/couscous2.jpg
(close up of some grains on my fingers -I have small hands-)
I always see pasta as exclusively an Italian thing. I don’t see Chinese noodles as pasta either nor couscous. If someone told me they had “pasta” for dinner last night, I would presume they meant spaghetti, penne, tagliatelle etc. A pasta restaurant would likewise imply Italian food. That might be just how I like to use the term, though.
However, I think think couscous might just be its own group. I recall having seen recipes for a sweet couscous made of breadcrumbs. I can’t remember where (The Guardian, possibly), so I don’t have a cite. It that were the case, though, it would suggest that it isn’t the ingredients that determine what is couscous. If we can have couscous made from non-pasta ingredients, then it can’t be the case that couscous is a pasta by definition.
That certainly looks like the couscous I’ve had here in the US…
I’ve also noticed the tendency here to group it in with “pasta”, along with every sort of noodle. It may just be one of those ways American language use differs from other forms of English. It may also be that the US customs service calls it “pasta” when crossing the border. It makes some sense to me, being a product of flour, especially if the government doesn’t have a separate cateogry for “couscous”. If it’s not pasta, it would seem to be a close cousin.
I’ve also noticed a lot of my fellow Americans mistaking couscous for rice when they’re served it.
Nope. It looks like the picture posted by ** Lazz **.
It’s possible that since Couscous is a rather common dish in France (heritage of the french north-african colonies, immigrants, and rapatried colonists from Algeria), it constitutes its own category in France,while it doesn’t in the US.
For me, pastas aren’t necessarily italian, but they must be significantly large and shaped in some way. Besides, I don’t know how couscous is produced. I always assumed it was merely ground wheat, but I might be wrong. I assumed that depending on how finely you gound wheat, you got, in order : “crushed” wheat (like what is served in Turkey), couscous, semolina, and finally flour.
It definitely is a different thing from cracked or bulgar wheat and similar grains; couscous is made from small balls of dough made from semolina and water; semolina is a coarse wheat flour, but with a grain size very much smaller than couscous.
Whether or not we call it pasta depends on how you define pasta; if the definition is "shaped pieces of dough’ (I was going to say ‘dried’, but this isn’t always the case), then it fits, but otherwise perhaps not.
Sorry, but to me couscous is not even coming close to what I know as pasta.
It is not shaped as pasta is, it can not be cooked, it must be steamed to become eatable and then miraculously turns into something soft and fluffy.
I never heard of anything called “pasta” that can not be cooked, must be steamed and then becomes something fluffy that you must roll into little balls for being able to eat it.
By the way: it is not a “typical Moroccan” dish exclusively. Countries - and in these countries the local regions as well - have their own varieties of couscous preparations.
Now don’t ask me where what is eaten, I am even not sure that I know what a kitchen looks like. All I know about it is that when prepared the traditional way, it becomes something delicious. Which suffices for me 
I even manage to eat it the traditional way and even learned to do so with my right hand, being lefthanded (resulting in funny pictures from me as a kid struggling with couscous dish at locations I don’t remember where it could be).
Salaam. A
I always thought couscous was just coarse ground wheat, so maybe I’ll learn something here ?
As for orzo, I wouldn’t really call orzo pasta - it’s just dried barley(?) for use in soup. Not even wheat based.
It looks very similar to cracked/kibbled/bulgar wheat, but it isn’t the same thing; it is made from little balls of dough prepared from flour that is initially ground to quite a fine texture.
Maybe your orzo is different than mine, but the packages I have are made from “100% semolina” (according to the label) and resemble pasta in texture and flavor when cooked. They basically look like grains of rice, except made from pasta dough.
And couscous is not just coarse ground wheat. It’s a dough made from wheat and flour which is then finely grated/milled/however they do it. It still fits my admittedly loose definition of pasta (which includes any noodle substance – basically, anything that started as dough and ends up cooked by water/steam/whatever.)
:eek:
The packaged couscous I buy in (American) grocery stores is indeed cooked. You prepare it in boiling water, just like rice. Note that you don’t cook it like pasta–you use only enough water for the grains to absorb.
Well, you piqued my interest here - a little googling confirms what you’re saying, in the US orzo is “rice-shaped pasta”.
In Italy, orzo is barley http://www.buonissimo.org/ricette/469_ms27_zuppa.asp - so my guess is that what’s referred to as orzo in the US, is pasta made from barley flour. http://www.molinobongiovanni.com/ricette/ric-orzo.htm
Although when I found out that pepperoni in the US is a sausage, I was a little surprised (in Italy it means bell peppers), so anything is possible.
Kind of drifted a little far from couscous here !
undefined
In my opinion that can not be couscous. I never heard that it remains eatable when you cook it. I was told that the whole art of preparing it lies in the preparation of the dry substance and then in how it is steamed.
Maybe you mean that you buy something “pre-prepared” and then have to warm it up “au bain marie” = in a closed item that you hang in boiling water.
(Girls and other admiring audience, don’t think now that I am a French Chef… I only saw such things described on packages containing food I had no clue about. We made it a competition to try to prepare them and sometimes it even turned out to be eatable. Yes… Maybe I missed my real vocation in life.)
Salaam. A
Ah…so orzo is barley in Italy. I understand now. I knew the pepperoni tidbit, but not about orzo. Good to know. But, as I said, the orzo I’ve seen in the US is made from semolina, not barley flour. It literally looks like rice, except it’s made from standard pasta dough (semolina + water).
Orzo is called orzo because it is shaped like barley grains. Just like penne is shaped like quills.
Couscous in the US is indeed pre-steamed. It is then soaked briefly in boiing water.
I learned both these facts by following links contained in thios thread. Read, people!
Couscous doesn’t have to be steamed; I cook it by boiling 2 cups of water, adding 1 cup of dry couscous, covering and removing from the heat - it absorbs the water and continues to steam itself. ending up as fluffy, separate grains.
I think it depends what you mean by “cook” - in the past I used to steam couscous, not too difficult really but then I read the instructions on a supermarket packet which basically say “add n ml of boiling water to x grams of couscous, stir, cover for 5 mins” - even easier! (and I’m damned if I can tell the difference)
The packet of couscous in my cupboard at the moment (UK Sainsbury own brand) just says “grains of semolina with a fine wheatflour coating” - no mention of being easy-cook type
AFAIK, in the UK pasta is pasta and couscous ain’t.
Read about the history of Couscous:
http://www.geocities.com/tdcastros/Historyserver/papers/cuscus.htm
Hmmmm, I beg to differ with you on that. I make the easy-cook stuff the way you described and it’s fine. Never tried it with regular. BUT, my mother makes non easy-cook couscous in the proper steam pan thingy and it is most definetely a lot nicer.
I agree with Aldebaran by the way, that you should not cook (i.e. boil) any type of couscous. Yuck.
Pouring hot water on and soaking is acceptable. Steaming is the best way to go if you have the patience. My opinion, of course, but I’m not going to be talked out of this one. ever. I love couscous.
OK, how about this, as an attempt at an answer to the OP that perhaps most of us can get behind:
Couscous is similar to pasta, in that it is manufactured from shaped wheat dough.