عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Jeddah Season 2024: A Month of Entertainment and Diverse Experiences

Jeddah Season 2024 concluded its first month during which shows, events and a variety of experiences were held for the first time. (SPA)
Jeddah Season 2024 concluded its first month during which shows, events and a variety of experiences were held for the first time. (SPA)
TT
TT

Jeddah Season 2024: A Month of Entertainment and Diverse Experiences

Jeddah Season 2024 concluded its first month during which shows, events and a variety of experiences were held for the first time. (SPA)
Jeddah Season 2024 concluded its first month during which shows, events and a variety of experiences were held for the first time. (SPA)

Jeddah Season 2024 concluded its first month under the slogan "Once Again", during which shows, events and a variety of experiences were held for the first time, the Saudi Press Agency said Sunday.
Large areas had been equipped to host different events and shows; international acrobatic teams presented daily live shows that attracted record numbers of visitors of all ages and nationalities.
Entertainment, tourism, cultural and sports activities and events filled the season. The City Walk area involved a mix of interactive experiences and movement and skill games. Arabic plays were presented and there were restaurants, cafés and shopping stores.
The Warner Bros. Discovery area, which opened for the first time in Saudi Arabia, offered visitors and tourists games and entertainment shows; other areas were opened to visitors, and events were held in partnership with the private sector.
The Imagine Monet exhibition featured Monet's paintings with modern techniques and innovative design; visitors could enjoy the artistic experience, but also sports.
Prince Majed Park offered wonderful and original shows that met the tastes of all.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
TT
TT

Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)

For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple and pastime, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées, The Associated Press reported.
In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”
“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”
Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.
The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event, a Nabeul-based preservation group. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.
UNESCO in 2022 called harissa an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage.
Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.
Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.
The finished peppers are combined it with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.
“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.