Tozeur

Tozeur stands on the site of Tusuros, a Roman town on the road along the edge of the Chott el Djerid, which was itself built on a far older oasis settlement fed by springs. Its position made it a natural halt: the caravan routes that carried gold, salt and slaves north from the Sahara came out of the desert here, and the oasis could water and feed both people and animals. Under Rome the town was a frontier post and the seat of a bishopric; after the Arab conquest of the seventh century it became a market town of the Jerid, the palm-grove district that gives the region its name.

In the Middle Ages Tozeur was a centre of trade and religious learning, and in the fourteenth century the Ouled el-Hadef quarter was laid out by a local family in the style that still defines the town: walls of sun-dried and fired brick set in projecting geometric patterns, a technique thought to derive from the way palm wood and older mud construction were ornamented. The oasis was run by an elaborate and closely regulated system of irrigation channels, dividing the water of the springs among families by fixed shares — a system recorded in detail by medieval writers.

The town came under Ottoman and then French administration, the latter running the far south as a military territory and linking Tozeur to the coast by road and rail for the date trade. Since independence, dates and tourism have shaped its growth: deglet nour became a major export crop, and from the 1960s the town acquired hotels, an airport and a role as the base for desert excursions, while the nearby desert was repeatedly used as a film location.

Tozeur's identity is that of the Jerid — an oasis society built around water rights, date palms and the families that hold them. The old quarter is the physical expression of it, and the brickwork of Ouled el-Hadef is a craft still practised, with modern hotels and public buildings copying its patterns. Palm wood, fronds and fibre are worked into roofs, doors, fences, baskets and mats, and weaving of woollen blankets and rugs continues in the town.

Religious life is strong and quieter than on the coast. Nefta, a short way west, is a centre of Sufi shrines and pilgrimage, and marabout tombs stand at the edges of the groves around Tozeur itself. Poetry and music of the desert south, and the long traditions of hospitality that go with them, are still part of local occasions: weddings fill several days, and guests are pressed with tea and dates.

The town is also used to outsiders. Generations of travellers, film crews and tour groups have passed through, and a whole local economy of guides, carriage drivers, hotel workers and craft sellers has grown around them; the film sets in the desert beyond Nefta are part of the town's modern folklore. Locals draw a clear line between the oasis, which is theirs and worked daily, and the desert beyond it, which is treated with respect and not entered lightly.

About 37,000 people live in Tozeur, the capital of its governorate, and the surrounding communes of the Jerid add tens of thousands more. Life divides between the old quarter and the low modern streets around the main avenue, with newer housing spreading towards the airport and the palm grove's edge. Many households still own or work a plot in the oasis even when their income comes from elsewhere.

The economy rests on dates and tourism. Deglet nour from the Jerid is one of Tunisia's best-known agricultural exports, and the packing and shipping season sets the pace of the autumn; hotels, guides, carriage drivers, craft shops and desert excursions provide much of the rest of the work, and suffer whenever visitor numbers fall. Water is the constant worry: springs that once flowed freely have been replaced by deep boreholes, the water table has dropped, and the salinity of soils on the chott's edge is a live issue for date farmers.

The day is shaped by heat. Markets, errands and work in the groves are done early; the streets empty in the early afternoon; and the cafés and the main avenue fill again after sunset, especially in summer, when much of social life is nocturnal. Young people leave for Sfax, Tunis or abroad, and unemployment in the south is a persistent grievance.

Southern Tunisian cooking is plainer than the coast's, built on what the oasis and the flocks provide. Couscous is the centrepiece, steamed and served with lamb or with vegetables from the gardens under the palms, and sometimes with kadid, meat salted and dried in the sun to keep without refrigeration. Lamb and kid are grilled over charcoal or slow-cooked in a covered pot, and chorba, a spiced broth with fine pasta, is the standard start to a meal, especially in Ramadan.

Dates run through everything. The deglet nour, translucent and honey-sweet, is eaten fresh at harvest, dried for the year, pressed into paste for makroudh — the date-filled semolina sweet — and boiled down into syrup. Rtob, the softer, half-ripe stage of the fruit, is a delicacy that rarely travels. The palms also give legmi, the sap drawn from the crown of the tree, drunk sweet and fresh in the morning or left to ferment into a cloudy alcoholic drink.

The national staples are all here: harissa on the table, brik filled with egg and tuna, lablabi for breakfast, mechouia salad of charred peppers and tomatoes, and olives from the groves north of the chott. Mint tea, poured strong and sweet and often sprinkled with pine nuts or almonds, is the social drink, served after long preparation over coals in the desert camps and on every café terrace in town.