Crafting Luxury with ‘More-ish’ Qualities …
145
4 ‘More-ish’ Qualities
Originally, deriving from Berber (or Amazigh) culture, the term ‘Mour’ was associated with more, something that arouses one’s senses, which links with both luxury
and architecture, and its quality of crafting. Wanton or benevolent desire of taste,
for instance, would trickle into what French philosopher Immanuel Kant would put
it as ‘many kinds of agreeable sensations [which] are ‘more-ish’ or productively
interested, [but] not all pleasures in the agreeable are’ [43, p. 316]. Metaphorically
speaking, ‘more-ish,’ is a colloquial term mostly associated with the desire for food.
Perceived by some to be the world’s first processed food, olives harvested in Northern
Africa, for instance, in Libya, or the deep-fried brik pastries of Tunisia are considered
to be ‘more-ish’. Relating to tasty food, the term ‘more-ish’ in the Oxford English
Dictionary makes reference to Jonathan Swift’s 1738 Polite Conversation and also
found earlier in the 1700s, but not in print [37, p. 3398]. Arguably, the word was
detected in historical or contemporary accounts is neither associated with the Moors
or Mours nor does it have any association with Moroccan cooking. Herein, one quality of more-ish implies the hunger to know more of sustainable Amazigh culture.
Another quality is expressed as something sustainably beneficial within or outside
architecture.
Architecturally, ‘more-ish’ pointed first towards actual tea-bricks. Then, it was
associated with drinking a hot brew and meal services and certain spaces. In the case
of ‘brick teas’ (which were first created in China about 1000 years ago then Siberia
and subsequently in India), consisted of leaves, stalks and twigs were compressed
[4, p. 367] flat into portable organic objects. Brick tea was also used ‘as a form of
currency’ [20, p. 127]. In eighteenth-century England, Swift’s account about a woman
sipping tea is curious since the liquid became a popular drink and one desired more
of it. This would have been the time when Twinning’s Tea Room (ca 1706) was
established in England where one would take tea plus consume cakes and savoury
pastries in the afternoon. Meanwhile, earlier in the mid-seventeenth century tea was
served publically through the coffeehouses as an indulgence. Eventually, tea became
recognised as a builder’s hot brew, so mouth-watering other people wanted some of
the libation, if not, more of it too.
Tea was associated with dinner or ‘meal service’ as well, hence the whetting
one’s appetite, within a tea room. ‘One example of a local tea experience is found
in the distinctive culinary tradition that has evolved around the English afternoon
tea. This is a meal service that usually consists of tea accompanied by sandwiches
and sweets …. In some cultures, tea also plays another role in cuisines, either as a
dish on its own or as a flavouring for local dishes’ [20, p. 130]. One key modern
architectural example of note is Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Willow Tearooms
(1903) in Glasgow, Scotland, with its series of art tearooms. At that time, lavish
materials were used to create Mackintosh’s Salon De Luxe, but this case is more about
the Arts and Crafts Movement rather than the reverse—crafts and art. Everything
from the carpets to the cutlery was branded in Mackintosh’s Salon De Luxe, perceived
by some as an ‘organic’ composition. Meanwhile, in Morocco, the Maghrebi mint
145
4 ‘More-ish’ Qualities
Originally, deriving from Berber (or Amazigh) culture, the term ‘Mour’ was associated with more, something that arouses one’s senses, which links with both luxury
and architecture, and its quality of crafting. Wanton or benevolent desire of taste,
for instance, would trickle into what French philosopher Immanuel Kant would put
it as ‘many kinds of agreeable sensations [which] are ‘more-ish’ or productively
interested, [but] not all pleasures in the agreeable are’ [43, p. 316]. Metaphorically
speaking, ‘more-ish,’ is a colloquial term mostly associated with the desire for food.
Perceived by some to be the world’s first processed food, olives harvested in Northern
Africa, for instance, in Libya, or the deep-fried brik pastries of Tunisia are considered
to be ‘more-ish’. Relating to tasty food, the term ‘more-ish’ in the Oxford English
Dictionary makes reference to Jonathan Swift’s 1738 Polite Conversation and also
found earlier in the 1700s, but not in print [37, p. 3398]. Arguably, the word was
detected in historical or contemporary accounts is neither associated with the Moors
or Mours nor does it have any association with Moroccan cooking. Herein, one quality of more-ish implies the hunger to know more of sustainable Amazigh culture.
Another quality is expressed as something sustainably beneficial within or outside
architecture.
Architecturally, ‘more-ish’ pointed first towards actual tea-bricks. Then, it was
associated with drinking a hot brew and meal services and certain spaces. In the case
of ‘brick teas’ (which were first created in China about 1000 years ago then Siberia
and subsequently in India), consisted of leaves, stalks and twigs were compressed
[4, p. 367] flat into portable organic objects. Brick tea was also used ‘as a form of
currency’ [20, p. 127]. In eighteenth-century England, Swift’s account about a woman
sipping tea is curious since the liquid became a popular drink and one desired more
of it. This would have been the time when Twinning’s Tea Room (ca 1706) was
established in England where one would take tea plus consume cakes and savoury
pastries in the afternoon. Meanwhile, earlier in the mid-seventeenth century tea was
served publically through the coffeehouses as an indulgence. Eventually, tea became
recognised as a builder’s hot brew, so mouth-watering other people wanted some of
the libation, if not, more of it too.
Tea was associated with dinner or ‘meal service’ as well, hence the whetting
one’s appetite, within a tea room. ‘One example of a local tea experience is found
in the distinctive culinary tradition that has evolved around the English afternoon
tea. This is a meal service that usually consists of tea accompanied by sandwiches
and sweets …. In some cultures, tea also plays another role in cuisines, either as a
dish on its own or as a flavouring for local dishes’ [20, p. 130]. One key modern
architectural example of note is Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Willow Tearooms
(1903) in Glasgow, Scotland, with its series of art tearooms. At that time, lavish
materials were used to create Mackintosh’s Salon De Luxe, but this case is more about
the Arts and Crafts Movement rather than the reverse—crafts and art. Everything
from the carpets to the cutlery was branded in Mackintosh’s Salon De Luxe, perceived
by some as an ‘organic’ composition. Meanwhile, in Morocco, the Maghrebi mint