ORIGIN OF HARISSA AND HIS COMPOSITION :

Harissa is a piquant sauce native of Tunisia.
Its recipe varies but includes generally some red hot pepper, some coriander, some cumin,  caraway and  garlic.
 harissa is generally used as an ingredient. It is an important element of the Tunisian cooking(kitchen) but can be found in the other kitchens of the Maghreb.
It is normally sold in tubes and in boxes. It is often consumed with some couscous, pastas or a soup.

WHY WE PUT HOT PEPPER IN the MENU?
beacause :

1. Discreet or "fanatic", it looks of the personality to dishes, sweet as to
2. He gets married strangely to the chocolate and the corn, which are native, as him, of America.
3. Some people say it aphrodisiac, the others praise, its digestive virtues.

And especially :
Certain varieties are a good source of alpha-tocophérol, a shape of vitamin E. The capsaïcine of hot pepper, the substance which confers him pricking taste, increases the satisfaction and the basic metabolism, assets for the persons who watch their weight.

WHICH IS THE ORIGIN OF TOMATOES?

 There is doubtless thousands of dishes on base of tomatoes. Because of its colour, of its taste and of its numerous varieties, the tomato crossed a long road since the old Aztec civilizations to become omnipresent in the current kitchens.

A large number of the most wide-spread and the most delicious dishes of our period go back up in distant time and to the trade of edible plants between the Ancient and the New World. The tomato, native of the low Andes, was cultivated by the Aztecs in Mexico. The Aztec word “tomatl “meant simply «fleshy fruit» and the Spanish conquistadors called it "tomato. The tomato, as the corn, the potato, the hot pepper and the sweet potato, was introduced in Spain at the beginning of the 16th century during the journeys of Christopher Columbus.

The tomato doubtless arrived at first to Seville, major center of international trade, in particular with Italy. In 1544, the Italian chemist Mattioli appoints yellow fruits of the plantations of «mala aurea " tomato, the golden apple, before mentioning in 1554 a red variety. Dodoens, a Dutch chemist, gives in 1554 a detailed description and the fruit receives a reputation from aphrodisia. This reputation explains names such as «apple of love» in French, «pomodoro» in Italian and «coil apple «in English.
It is in the 18th century when the plant becomes slowly a wide-spread culinary ingredient. The most ancient known Neapolitan recipe, the «tomato sauce in the Spanish ", dates 1692.

Although it is considered as a vegetable because of its numerous culinary uses, the tomato is really a fruit of the family of Solanacées. It is similar to the potato, to the pepper and to the eggplant. The tomato is one of the most popular food / ingredients of Europe, partially thanks to its numerous varieties and to all the products to which she can join, as the cheese, the eggs, the meat and a wide range of aromatic herbs.

Tomatoes are nourishing; they contain quantities of vitamin C and of folate. In the food, the tomato is also the most important source of a called red pigment lycopène in the antioxidizing, even anticarcinogenic properties. Rates of lycopène raised in the blood plasma are associated with a reduced incidence of certain cancers, in particular the prostate cancer. Its assimilation by the body depends on the type of consummate product. In the blood plasma, the assimilated lycopène is significantly more important when it results from products on base of cooked tomatoes that of the consumption of an equal quantity of fresh tomatoes. Also, the bioavailability of the lycopène extracted from some juice of tomatoes sterilized by the heat is bigger than that some fresh juice of tomatoes.