On Tempeh from Gibraltar

Prelude:
You may think you know tempeh—one of the primary alternatives to meat—often sold as a paste-based congealed brick vacuum-sealed in synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers and varying colorants. When it is cooked, its surface hardens, while the interior, especially if crumbled, may keep a softer consistency, given the allotted time spent atop a stove element, within an oven, or a repurposed washing machine that utilizes cinders and paprika instead of water and detergent.
But are you aware of how humanity came to discover tempeh, how it was harvested, and how the production of tempeh has become a multi-million dollar industry, with drastic ecological and environmental impacts? If not, this article is for you. It’s a history as baffling as horse-meat sushi and as unknown as octopus wrestling.
I would like to stress that multiple scholarly sources indicate Indonesia as the true country of origin of tempeh, dating back over five hundred years. This article is not an attempt to challenge this history, but is primarily concerned with a lesser known variant, Gibraltish tempeh, which localized between Spain and Morocco.

I. Circa 1650-1700
It all begins with pirates. While the year is not exact, the peak of this activity and the discovery of Gibraltish tempeh takes place in this period.
In times of turmoil, when the people turned against the land barons of either Spain or Morocco, the wealthy would migrate from one country to another until the unrest relented or until another unrest returned.
From every bordering country, pirates would keep their ears close to the ground in anticipation for such cases, in order to pillage the ruling class.
Whatever the pirates couldn’t carry would often find its way to the seafloor, and gradually, with the turning of the tides, onto the beach sands.
A miniature gold bust of a four-faced, cross-legged being was one of the first pirate treasures to be found by local beach-combers. To them it wasn’t art, it was only worth it’s weight in gold. Gathering their pails and shovels, they spent their days combing the beach for more riches.
Naturally, there were high and low tides when it came to the volume of treasure found. Most came ‘seasonally’ when there’d be news of a recent pirate attack somewhere in the Alborán Sea or a shipwreck out the mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar. Others had greater ambitions, to comb the sand beneath the water.
Their ability to hold their breath improved over time, and they began to innovate some of the earliest prototypes of scuba gear, utilizing stolen bamboo chutes and designing their own flippers made from tree bark.
When the seasonal crowds left, the local beach-combers would utilize handmade domes, in teams of three or four, to create an air pocket pushing further down into the water. One man would dig for longer periods of time, and the other men would hold as long as they could, breathing through the long chutes up to the surface.
The deeper they got the firmer the sand became and the harder it became to remove items from beneath the sand especially since many would be coated in a web-like moss that looked like intertwined fingers. This coating would need to be sliced or shaved with the long stretch of a machete. As the divers would rise to the surface with the grate of treasures, they would see the remnants of subterranean weed coating shrivel at the surface.
On days when there was just rocks and slices of this strange seaweed, the locals’ hungry stomachs controlled their imaginations, and a new meal was born.
At first, it had a tough, gummy texture and required cooking it for months. It took much trial and error at different temperatures. Early cases left people with minor symptoms of jaundice’s rarer cousin, Bowel Tide Syndrome (BTS), a temporary condition which often results in hours of aggressive dyspepsia.
While many, especially those in the throws of poverty, ate the substance leading to a hefty affinity for it. (Consider the fiddlehead: if cooked improperly, a veritable poison to the gut and mind.) As such, it was incorporated into spiritual rituals, art making, and local customs, and its consumption was viewed as ordained by the Gods and eaten as part of La Cena de la Sombra (“The Meal of Shadows”).
Retrospectively, knowing now what has been uncovered about Gibraltish tempeh many exports claim it has affected people’s brains. Discoveries of old graffiti murals from the few remaining walls in Morocco depict general slander toward those who laboured and lived at the beach, seeking treasure and tempeh. These murals include lightning striking the heads of the people who span the seaweed on a spit. Everyone was depicted with a crazed smile.
With time, the preferred way of preparing the raw subaquatic tempeh began with several days of drying it in the sun, hung on clotheslines by the strip. This would allow the deep-rooted salt water to evaporate leaving nothing but the salt. When it was ready to cook, it would fall into baskets which lined in rows below the clotheslines. From there, the baskets would be taken to the women who would grind and mash the crispy raw ingredient into a much finer mince, before it would be combined with another binding agent, such as eggs and bread crumbs in order to heat it in filets or ball-shapes.
On the Moroccan coast, tempeh became a delicacy. As the pirates declined and the discovery of treasures diminished, Gibraltish tempeh became a new source of revenue and one of the area’s major exports.
As the years passed the Moroccan people grew dependent on the sea-based paste for sustenance. Many contemporary scholars believe that this slowly changed the colour of the local’s hair and skin over time.
Travellers so too sought to take and distribute the food to their countries of origin; outside-landownership grew. Various prototypes of the submersible baskets began to be developed by many of the great minds of the era, including Gottfried Wohl (1616-1698). One of his largest contributions, was that of a spring-loaded corkscrew—referred to colloquially as a velmugar’s tooth—that could puncture and twist the tight knots of the subterranean moss, pulling and twisting it up through a tube before a grid, filtering out the sand and rocks.
Unbeknownst to Wohl, years later, this same contraption would be used by terrorists and would later be banned by the Geneva convention. But his original intentions for the contraption could not foresee such atrocities.
The other Wohl contraption was a new development on the sinking dome, but this time it was fitted glass. Developments in glass blowing led to the warped shaping of more fortified screens to be utilized within the domes, for clearer vision when it came to the grafting of the ocean floor’s primitive goop. Wohl also realized that the subterranean moss could be used as a sort of adhesive to join the glass to the wood and wicker, maintaining the integrity and keeping water from seeping in when the domes would be force-sunk to the floor of the water. These new design-improvements lead to extended time beneath the surface, and further ability to rip apart the sap of tempeh beneath the sand.
The Moroccan people established incomes that were dependent on tempeh revenue and grew tired of increasing tariffs on their primary source of income; namely when ordered by King Sultan Naisir al-Zigan. On a side note, he was assassinated in 1672 shortly after a civil uprising on account of suspected wealth-hoarding and corruption given the ever-increasing taxes on tempeh.

II. Circa 1700-1943
The engineering of Tempeh grew, the technology developed, time fled faster than they’d expected. Not much happened in the way of tempeh developments until the rare delicacy became a sought-commodity until the French, having conquered Algeria, aimed to overtake Morocco in 1844. In 1856, thanks to the Anglo-Moroccan treaty, British subjects lowered Moroccan custom tariffs to 10%, which aided the distribution of Gibraltish tempeh to European countries for several decades.
There is very little information regarding much of this period regarding the development of Gibraltish tempeh. Speculation is that its patrons kept the recipe hidden from occupying armies during the Napoleonic Wars.
Per Hollywood myth, Humphrey Bogart learned of Gibraltish tempeh from the Moroccan crew during the filming of Casablanca (1942). Supposedly, he invited Ingrid Bergman in order to partake in the delicacy. During this period, Bergman was experimenting with vegetarianism; however, she was violently sick for a week which postponed filming. As a result, she swore off an animal-free diet permanently. Apparently, Bogart was fine.
Preceding his death on January 14, 1957, Bogart proclaimed:

I should have never switched from scotch to keosh.

This was the first known case that Gibraltish tempeh was referred to by what became its common street name. Bogart’s infamous final quote was a double-edged sword. One the one hand, it cautioned people of the effects of the substance. On the other hand, it made them aware and curious, as tempeh was yet to be known in western circles.

III. Circa 1950-1982
While the French government had relinquished their dependence on the Moroccan magistrates, certain agents kept their eyes keen on the development of tempeh, in the interest of maintaining independent business relations, that could later be treated with hefty tariffs, if not laws, to the French government.
The clause of interdependence with the French officially came to an end and Morocco became independent on April 7, 1956.
Prior to that, in early 1954, beat author William S. Burroughs would frequently visit Tangier, bordering the Strait of Gibraltar, in order to write his seminal novel Naked Lunch.
In a hauntingly accurate prediction, in this case considered through the lens of Gibraltish tempeh, Burroughs writes:

The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.

In Tangier, Burroughs was evidently no stranger to this tempeh, as he spent much of his time fraternizing in the bars among the locals.
As with anything good intended to be secretive and wholesome, alternative intentions begin to form.
Within three years, preceded by Beat artists such as Burroughs, Ginsberg and the like, Morocco became known internationally for this delicacy and its mind altering effects.
Come spring 1960, there were hundreds of bleach-blonde-headed beach people, being served tempeh on skewers, paired with fruit, peppers, and even olives. Tart, sweet, salty, and filling; the taste of tanning in the hot sun.
Wealthy Western European travellers took to the taste. What once began as a vacation treat on occasion grew to a craving.
Soon, several North American investors took to launching massive sums into the extraction and delivery of this tempeh.
Sub-sea cranes handling twenty-foot grafts used to yank the beach floor with the means to slice and tear away the tight-knots of the fingers of this special sea-weed. And therefrom, the Alborán Sea saw massive volumes of traffic, due to the recent industrial influx of attention given to tempeh. This lead to the increasing cost of large barges of containers seeking to bring Gibraltish tempeh to North America.
The locals on the Moroccan and Spanish coasts grew angry, both due to witnessing the vast depletion of their own resources, as well as their own dependence on tempeh as a godly and, for many locals, a primary food source. While the government collected massive tax exemptions and bribes due to the new demand of tempeh, the people witnessed one more cycle of their history repeating: the greed of a select few at the cost of the community.
Many peoples whose families had been involved in the cultivation of tempeh for generations were radicalized, and took positions on the crew ships shipping out to North America, in order to plant pipe bombs and sabotage.
After enough a few successful attempts, the shipping companies, such as TARSAEK™ and BILLBEON™, created policies to no longer hire Moroccan people to work on the ships. Government kickbacks were cut back and the entire capital of the country suffered.
Of course, the corrupt officials fled to other countries while the people of Morocco made do with the resources at hand.
Government representative Avila Del Sair, born to a Spanish mother and a Moroccan father, speaking at a conference regarding the trade of Gibraltish tempeh spoke fervently against the mass cultivation of their unique resource, in 1982:

It is of the utmost importance that the regulation of tempeh be treated by the people living within relative distance of the Alboràn Sea. We have conducted extensive studies regarding the effects should it ever be distributed within a particular distance of its origin. Both for economic and ecological means, we can not entrust the industrialization of our precious, indigenous feed. We are right and borne to fight for its proper place, in our homes and in our country exclusively, before it should be commodified, corrupted and ultimately exploited.

Her speech was met with significant support from most of the population of Morocco and Del Sair was lauded as a hero by those among the coast of the Alborán Sea and Strait of Gibraltar. However, many figures in both Europe and North America, having had a taste of Gibraltish tempeh sought to indulge in any way they could.
King Hassan II of Morocco remained silent following the speech, in a move that was often criticized by political commentators within the country. Hassan was largely renowned for his conservative approach during his reign; however, given that tempeh was a shared resource between the people of Spain and Morocco, many speculate he opted to keep silent on the matter, fearing greater backlash.
With increased knowledge of keosh reaching the United States and an increased influx of several thousand American visitors to the Morocco and Spanish coasts each year seeking to taste, President Ronald Reagan officially declared the War on Drugs in the summer of 1971.

IV. Circa 1982 - 2019
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was founded in 1980, and, given funding from both the monarchy of Morocco as well as from the United States government, they were encouraged to investigate deeper into source of Gibraltish tempeh, aiming to further dissuade the public form indulging in the popularized keosh in part due to Humphrey Bogart and William S. Burroughs.
The freshly-ordained organization quickly took to studies regarding the subterranean resource. The process would take years and the trouble continued. Of course, people need to make ends meet, or, as said in Spanish:

“Camarrón que se duerma es llevado por la corriente.”
[“The sleeping shrimp will be awakened by the current.”]

While the new Moroccan government implemented firm blockages on the extraction of Gibraltish tempeh distribution to North America, the black market always finds a way. Trade routes, beginning by boat from Morocco to Spain, then by road into France, where it was sent West via ports primarily in Plodalmezeau, Plouguerneau, Saint-Pol-de-Léon, among others, and shipped across the sea, landing in Newfoundland and Labrador, and eventually finding its way both in Canada and across the border.
However, it must be stated, over the course of this travel, the tempeh itself dries and cracks, not only leading to an increasingly bitter taste, but demanding a new means of serving.
Delivered this way meant that North-American enjoyers would take to grinding the tempeh into a chalk-like powder, which would then be combined with another protein of their choice, (typically, Indonesian tempeh), in an effort to imitate an incalculable taste.
It has been said, the elite who opt not to visit Morocco will send private jets to and from with palettes of the raw material in order to receive it as quickly as possible in an attempt to maintain the taste. But, seeing as how Gibraltish tempeh originates from the ocean floor, the high air-pressure has lead to alternative flavours, as well as side effects, to the select few who could afford to enjoy it.
The problems extend: PETA has been conducting studies for years regarding the re-evaluation of the original ‘ocean-floor-seaweed’ to be reconsidered as a living being, not unlike that of a jellyfish with a fastened, tightly-bound, un-breaking wrist. The studies have not been released. However, bribes are suspected and many sudden deaths have occurred. PETA still persists to this day.

V. Circa 2020
In North America, Gibraltish tempeh is a figment of the past. The only way one can enjoy it is to take a flight to Morocco and break bread with the locals on the coast.
To the few who indulge in the dry powder of tempeh-coating—at a great expense—find themselves eating a cheap, chalky imitation.
For the even fewer, who have been privileged enough to taste of the tempeh flown via jet from Morocco to the West-Coast of North America, the substance goes by its alternate name: keosh.
Where it began as once a delicacy has been bastardized in North America culture. It has become a chalky and unfulfilling meat substitute and it is used as an narcotic that is only available to the elite few who can afford.
Addicts have sprouted on both coasts of North America; not to mention several reports of overdoses and suffocations on account of it being spiked with mayonnaise in order to better imitate Gibraltish tempeh at its rawest source.
While there is a history, between Spain and Morocco, of chasing out the greed that dried the lifestyles of those who founded and bore the substance at first, the greed perpetuates given the lifestyles and expenses these billionaires are willing to exchange, for a sniff of a corrupted material from a distant country.