The camels are coming
Roxanne Sorooshian
It’s been a good week for … tagines ARE you the proud owner of a large clay North African cooking vessel with a big pointy lid that’s too big to fit inside a standard British oven? Does it gather dust on top of a kitchen unit, being too large to actually fit into a cupboard? Was it a well-meant gift … or was it an overambitious foray into exotic cuisine after watching too much MasterChef? Well, at least you used it once.
However, the tagine may well be making a comeback following a story from Mali involving the French president, a camel and a stew in Timbuktu.
As a thank-you to France for sending troops to help regain territory from militants, the people of Mali presented French president François Hollande with a camel. It was originally intended that the distinguished dromedary would be transported to a French zoo, but the logistics proved tricky. Instead, Hollande left the animal with a family in Timbuktu for safekeeping. It was promptly slaughtered and used in a tagine.
A Malian official said: “As soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel. The new camel will be sent to Paris. We are ashamed of what happened to the camel. It was a present that did not deserve this fate.”
Indeed it did not. But at least we now know what the silly big lid on a tagine is for – to accommodate a hump. It’s been a bad week for … the Irish mint YOU would think anyone planning to honour one of the world’s most highlyacclaimed modern writers would try to get the words right. Unfortunately, the Central Bank of Ireland was somewhat remiss in the proof-reading department when it minted a coin commemorating James Joyce. The €10 piece bears an image of the writer and a quote from his famous novel Ulysses – but it contains an extra word.
Joyce wrote: “Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read.” However, the new coin contains a surplus “that” in the second sentence. The bank says it regrets the error, but the coin was an artistic representation of the author and text, and “not intended as a literal representation”. Fancy expecting a literal representation of a literary figure.
Given Joyce’s propensity for experimental prose and the streamof-consciousness technique used in Ulysses, a rogue relative pronoun seems of little consequence.
It’s a Bloomer all the same.