Mahdia

Mahdia was founded in 916 by Abdallah al-Mahdi, the first Fatimid caliph, who chose a narrow rock peninsula that could be sealed off by a single wall and gate — the Skifa el Kahla still stands on that line. The city was built as a capital and a naval base, with an artificial harbour cut into the rock, an arsenal, a palace and a congregational mosque, and from here the Fatimids launched the campaigns that took them to Egypt in 969, after which they moved their capital to the new city of Cairo.

The Zirid governors they left behind kept Mahdia as a port and fortress. It survived a siege by the Banu Hilal, was held briefly by the Normans of Sicily in the mid-twelfth century, and was taken by the Almohads. In 1390 a Franco-Genoese crusading expedition besieged the town without taking it. Under the Ottomans the corsair Dragut used it as a base until a Spanish force captured and then abandoned it in the 1550s, blowing up much of the walls; the town that survived was a smaller fishing and weaving place inside the ruins.

Through the French protectorate and after independence Mahdia grew again as a major fishing port, with canning factories, an olive-oil trade and a silk and weaving industry that supplied wedding clothes across the country. Tourism came late and modestly, in a strip of hotels along the beaches north of the town, leaving the old quarter far less altered than those of the larger Sahel resorts. Finds from a Roman-era shipwreck off the coast, raised by sponge divers and archaeologists from 1907, are among the treasures of the Bardo museum in Tunis.

Mahdia's reputation within Tunisia rests on two things: fish and cloth. The fishing fleet gives the town its working identity and its calendar, and weaving gives it a craft tradition that survives in workshops in the old lanes, where silk and gold-thread fabric is made for wedding costumes. A Mahdia bride's dress is a recognised style, and the town's textiles are still bought from across the Sahel for marriages.

The religious landscape is Fatimid in origin but wholly Sunni in practice today, and the great cemeteries on the headland, whitewashed rows of tombs facing the sea, are a distinctive local sight and a place of family visiting rather than a tourist attraction. Saints' tombs and small zaouias are scattered through the old town.

Socially, Mahdia is quieter and more conservative than Sousse or Monastir, and visitors notice both the absence of touting and the small scale of everything: the main square holds a few cafés, and everyone at the port knows the boats. Summer brings emigrants home from France and Italy and fills the beach flats, and evenings are spent walking the length of the headland between the two seas. Football, cafés and family gatherings are the ordinary entertainment.

About 75,000 people live in the town, the centre of a governorate of coastal villages and olive country inland. Fishing dominates: Mahdia is a major sardine port with a fish-processing industry, and the fleet supports canning, ice, boatbuilding, net making and the market. Textiles and clothing workshops, olive oil, and a modest hotel trade make up most of the rest, alongside the schools, clinics and offices of a governorate capital.

Most residents live in the modern quarters inland from the gate rather than in the old town, which holds shops, workshops and an ageing population. The day begins very early at the harbour, slows through the hot afternoon and picks up again in the evening, when the cafés fill and families walk the corniche. Friday prayers and the weekly market set the weekly rhythm.

The pressures are those of the Tunisian coast generally: a rising cost of living, too few jobs for graduates, and emigration, both regular and by boat across the Mediterranean. Overfishing and the state of the sardine stocks are a live local concern, as is the seasonal dependence of the beach hotels.

The port sets the menu. Sardines are the emblem of Mahdia, grilled whole over charcoal, and the fleet also lands bream, mullet, sea bass, red mullet, octopus and cuttlefish. The classic treatment is plain: fish on the grill, olive oil, lemon, a dish of harissa and a salad of tomato, cucumber and onion. Fish couscous — semolina steamed above a pot of stock, vegetables and chunks of fish — is the celebration dish of the whole Sahel and is made especially well along this coast.

Around it sit the Tunisian staples. Brik, a crackling pastry triangle of egg, tuna and capers eaten in one careful bite; ojja, eggs set in a fiery tomato and pepper sauce, often with prawns here; slatit mechouia of charred peppers and tomatoes; and lablabi, chickpeas in garlic broth over torn bread, for a cheap breakfast. Salted and cured fish and preserved octopus are part of the local larder, as is charmoula, the sweet-sharp onion and raisin sauce eaten with fish around religious holidays.

Olive oil from the groves inland goes into everything and is sold loose by the litre in the market. Sweets are semolina and date based — makroudh, and almond pastries — and street stalls fry bambalouni doughnuts in the evening. Mint tea with pine nuts and strong coffee are the social drinks; alcohol is found mainly in the beach hotels.