El Kef

The rock and its spring made the site: a settlement of Phoenician origin stood here, afterwards a Numidian stronghold, and under Rome it became the colony of Sicca Veneria, marked by its worship of Venus and by the wheat of the surrounding plains. Christianity came early, and one of the chief centres of the faith in North Africa left the three-naved basilica known as Dar El Kous, built at the beginning of the fifth century and dedicated to Saint Peter. The great cisterns that stored the town's water are still visible in the streets.

After the Arab conquest the town kept its role as a frontier stronghold facing the mountains and, later, the Algerian side of the border. Its name, El Kef, simply means the rock. The Ottomans and then the Husainid beys of Tunis fortified the summit, building the kasbah in the 17th century to house a permanent garrison and completing it with fortified ramparts in 1740. Sufi lodges and the mausoleum of Sidi Bou Makhlouf gave the town a religious standing, and a Jewish community, established for centuries, lived in the quarter below.

Under the French protectorate El Kef was a military and administrative centre, and during the Second World War it served for a time as the provisional capital of Tunisia. It was a centre of nationalist and trade-union activity before independence in 1956. Since then the town has lost population and industry to Tunis and the coast, and it was one of the interior towns where protests spread in December 2010 and January 2011. Its monuments have been restored slowly, and it remains a governorate capital living largely on farming and public service.

El Kef has a reputation in Tunisia as a town of music, theatre and learning out of proportion to its size. It was a Sufi centre, with several zaouias, and the festivals around the mausoleum of Sidi Bou Makhlouf kept traditions of devotional song alive; the square in front of it is still the place where the town gathers. Amateur theatre and cultural associations have long been active, and summer brings concerts and performances to the old town and the kasbah.

The population is settled and rural in outlook, with strong family and village ties across the governorate and into Algeria, where relatives and dialects overlap. Hospitality follows the Maghrebi pattern of insistent invitations, several rounds of tea or coffee and a reluctance to let a guest leave hungry. Weddings are large, several-day affairs with drumming, ululation and processions.

Craft traditions belong to the countryside: women weave rugs, blankets and striped cloth in regional patterns, and pottery and basketry come from villages on the plain. Religious observance is mainstream and visible, with Ramadan reshaping the day and the two Eids the year's biggest family occasions. Visitors are unusual enough to be greeted and questioned kindly, and photographs of people are best taken only after asking.

The town had about 45,000 people at the 2004 census and is the capital of the Kef governorate, one of the least populated and poorest in Tunisia. The economy rests on wheat and barley from the surrounding plains, sheep and dairy farming, olive oil, and salaried jobs in the governorate administration, schools, hospital and university institutes. Emigration has been heavy for decades, to Tunis, to the coastal cities and to France, and many households depend partly on money sent home.

The day starts early and follows the farming and school calendar. Mornings are busiest in the lower town and at the market, the middle of the day is quiet in summer heat, and the late afternoon fills the cafés around the mausoleum square and the main avenue. The weekly market brings in villagers from across the plain, and Friday prayers empty the streets for an hour.

Unemployment among the young, the lack of industry, worn roads and a series of drought years that cut the grain harvest are the constant worries. Water supply and winter cold are recurring problems in the older houses. At the same time, restoration work in the old town, the appeal of the Roman sites nearby and a small but growing trade in guesthouses have given the place a modest tourism economy that barely existed a generation ago.

The Kef kitchen is that of the wheat-growing interior: bread, semolina and lamb. Couscous, the national dish, is cooked in many forms, among them borzgane, a sweet and savoury couscous that mixes dried fruits and nuts with tender meat and is made for festive occasions and to welcome spring. Hand-rolled semolina pastas go into the winter soups, and chorba, a seasoned broth with pasta and meat, is a Ramadan fixture.

Lamb and goat are grilled as chops and as merguez sausages, and the rural tradition of drying and salting meat to keep it through the winter survives in the farming villages. Olive oil, honey from the hills, and sheep and goat cheeses come from farms around the town, while wild greens, fennel and thistle are gathered in spring. Slata mechouia, the salad of grilled peppers, tomatoes and onions dressed with oil and lemon, and brik, a crisp fried pastry parcel with egg, appear as they do everywhere in the country.

Sweets lean on dates, almonds and semolina — makroudh, ghraiba and honey-soaked pastries — and are offered with mint tea topped with pine nuts or almonds. Coffee is drunk strong and short. Thibarine, a herbal date liqueur named after Thibar in the neighbouring governorate, is the region's best-known drink of its kind.