Moroccan Carrot Salad

When Annalena ventures outside of her realm to other cuisines, she looks for "consanguinities." (Look it up. You'll love the word). Is there something that I can point to and say "this reminds me of Italian stuff" Sometimes, there isn't, like with guacamole, but it's so good that I just learn to make it, and continue to learn to make it.
There are certain consanguinities between Moroccan food, and SOUTHERN Italian food. In fact, they exist for all of those wonderful Mediterranean cuisines. Paula Wolfert is the expert on that kind of thing (THE expert), and I urge you to become familiar with her books and her recipes. I'm afraid that we will not see the likes of Ms Wolfert, who is both chef and anthropologist, for a while. She's not going anywhere, but I'm looking for the next generation of explorers who learn their cuisine cultures, too.
I am told by her books, and by others, that there is an entire repertoire of carrot salads in Moroccan cooking, and that sounds fine to me. I made this one as part of a plate of three salads for a party. It vanished. I could have made three times as much. It typifies much of what is so wonderful about the style of Mediterranean cooking: it's easy, it's simple (the two are NOT synonymous in cooking), and it tastes good. It is also extremely economical. AND... for all you busy folks out there, you can make it ahead of time.
I am also told that it's Arabic name is "Shalata chizo." I might add that it's MOROCCAN Arabic, because if you want to get into a linguistic duel, start talking about the different varieties of Arabic.

Ok. First, you need a pound of carrots. Scrape em clean, and then grate them roughly. The big hole end of a box grater (if you don't have one, GET ONE), is perfect for this. Put them into a big bowl, and just start tossing in the following things: 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil (the recipe says you can use vegetable oil. DONT). Then squeeze in the juice of one or two lemons. If you happen to have a meyer lemon, use one of those, or use all meyer juice. Next a big helping of chopped cilantro (if you like it), or parsley (if you don't). I used parsley because I didn't know if my guests would like the cilantro. It was fine Use the flat leaved varieity. "Big helping?" I used about 3/4 of a cup, triple what the recipe called for. Also chop up 4 cloves of garlic, really fine. Then add a teaspoon of ground cumin, a teaspoon of sweet paprika (yes, there is more than one kind. If you don't have the sweet, use the smoked, which is what I did). Add some salt, and then, finally something hot and spicy. Harissa is authentic, cayenne pepper works. Half a teaspoon of this.

Like I say, just put this all in a bowl, toss it together with your hands, cover it, and put it in the fridge. You can do this two days ahead if you want, it's just fine and it's better for it.

Put it out with toasted pita bread, or just plain pita bread, and watch it disappear.

Play it out. How long would it take you to make this salad? Fifteen minutes? I think you can handle it.

Summer is coming up. Can you think of much better than this with your barbeque?