The craftsman Shazli Al-Maghraoui stands in his workshop in the Tunisian capital, amidst jugs and pots lined up here and there, waiting for customers who have been bringing copper cooking utensils for years to coat them with a layer of tin and polish them for use in preparing food during the month of Ramadan.

Al-Maghrawi, 69, is among a few craftsmen specializing in polishing and polishing copper utensils. He has been loyal to his workshop for decades, which was established in 1977 in the Bab Al-Khadra neighborhood near the old city of the Tunisian capital, while the luster of this craft no longer attracts Tunisian youth who abandoned the business. arduous.

Every year before the month of Ramadan, Tunisians are keen to carry all copper utensils to specialized workshops to clean and repaint them, so that they are ready to prepare various dishes during this month.

Many clients, most of them women, who stand at the entrance to the workshop, repeatedly request that they hurry to prepare their dishes before the first days of Ramadan.

"It won't be possible. We have other requests, and as you can see I work on my own," Maghraoui replies, as he tends to the fire of his stove.

He melts a piece of tin between his fingers, then paints a container with its liquid to scrape it off later, then drowns it in a large bucket of water.

Tunisians call this process “tinting” and it consists of covering the utensils with a layer of molten tin to protect the food and preserve it from oxidation caused by the copper metal.

The effect of this becomes a "couscous" (a bowl for preparing couscous) or a "karwana" (a bowl for preparing soup), beautiful in shape and very shiny.

Maghraoui explains that this tradition "has been around for centuries and is always alive".

Tunisian mothers keep copper utensils in their kitchen, which they inherit and pass on to their granddaughters, to be among the basic necessities for preparing their homes before marriage.

"I feel a beautiful feeling when I use the 'dawzan' (a copper bottle) and it shines throughout the month of Ramadan," Sanaa Bukhris, 49, proudly told AFP.

"This tradition reminds me of the beautiful time and my mother's preparation for the holy month," added Bukhreis, who specializes in accounting and has been married for 28 years. "These utensils inherited from my mother contain blessings."

Dalila Boubaker, 53, a housewife, was only able to polish two pieces this year, while other Tunisian families struggled in search of something to cook amid an acute economic and social crisis the country is going through.

"The prices have become very high," she comments.

The cost of the "Qasdra" process ranges between 20 and 200 dinars (between 6 and 60 euros), and prices vary according to the size of the vessel.

The craftsmanship of kitchen utensils is declining due to the rise in copper prices around the world, but on the other hand, there is still a growing demand for polishing old utensils in Tunisia, according to many craftsmen.

Craftsman Abdel-Jalil Al-Ayari, 60, awaits every year this period that precedes the month of Ramadan, throughout the fifty years he spent in his profession in his workshop in the Old City.

He notes that "customers want their utensils to be ready before the start of Ramadan, and the woman is happy because her kitchen is decorated with clean utensils."

"No one wants to learn this craft today. They refuse to work in a workshop that is all black and they are afraid of getting dirty," he added, as he hums a song by Umm Kulthum broadcast from an old radio set that he placed in a corner of the workshop.
"We can no longer accept more orders," says Mabrouk Ramadan, 82, a craftsman who owns three shops in the "Nahas Market" in the Old City.

In the midst of this famous market in the capital, about fifty stores display kitchen supplies produced by craftsmen in a new look and design. With the approaching month of Ramadan, Tunisians buy cooking utensils, coffee preparation, teapots, small cups and pots.

Ramadan also displays old utensils for sale. “It is like jewelry to some clients,” says the craftsman, who laments the indifference of his sons to the importance of this profession.

There is a heartbreak for Al-Maghrawi, who personally bought his workshop twenty years ago from the heirs of its owner, who no longer had any interest in it. "Every time we lose a colleague in the craft, it is a loss for this profession and a step towards its extinction," he says.

He reveals his hands, which are blackened and damaged with deep grooves, and concludes that "the new generation is looking for easy work and does not like to see this."