Lonely Planet Morocco

by Lonely Planet

  Lftour comes with all the traditional Ramadan fixings: harira (a hearty soup), dates, milk, shebbakia (a sweet, coiled pastry that’s guaranteed to shift your glucose levels into high gear) and harsha (buttery bread made of semolina and fried for maximum density). You may find that harira is offered free; even Moroccan McDonald’s offers it as part of their special Ramadan Happy Meal.

  Street Eats

  Sidewalk cafes and kiosks put a local twist on the Continental breakfast, with Moroccan pancakes and doughnuts, French pastries, coffee and mint tea. Follow your nose and rumbling stomach into the souqs, where you’ll find tangy olives and local jiben (fresh goat’s or cow’s milk cheese) to be devoured with fresh khoobz (Moroccan-style pita bread baked in a wood-fire oven until it’s crusty on the outside, yet fluffy and light on the inside). Khoobz can be found wrapped in paper at any hanout (cupboard-sized corner shops found in every neighbourhood).

  In the souqs, you can’t miss vendors with their carts piled high with fresh fruit. You’ll never know how high oranges can be stacked or how delicious freshly squeezed aseer limoon (orange juice) can be until you pay a visit to a Moroccan juice-vendor’s cart.

  One savoury southern breakfast just right for chilly mornings is bessara (a steaming-hot fava-bean and garlic soup with cumin, olive oil and a dash of paprika), best when mopped up with khoobz still warm from the communal oven right down the street. For a twist on the usual French breakfast pastries, try rghaif (flaky, dense Moroccan pastries like flattened croissants), typically served with warm honey, apricot jam or, if you’re lucky, nutty tahalout (date syrup). The truly adventurous can start their day with a rich stew of lamb’s head or calves’ feet, generously ladled into an enamel bowl from a huge vat precariously balanced on a makeshift gas burner.

  Before dinner, your host may appear with a pitcher and a deep tray. Hold out your hands, and your host will pour water over them.

  El-Ghda (Lunch)

  Lunch is traditionally the biggest meal of the day in Morocco, followed by a nice nap through the heat of the day. The lunch hour here is really a three- to four-hour stretch from noon to 3pm or 4pm, when most shops and facilities are closed, apart from a few stores catering to tourists.

  For speed eaters this may seem inconvenient, but especially in summer it’s best to do as the locals do, and treat lunchtime as precious downtime. Tuck into a tajine, served à la carte with crusty bread, or upgrade to a prix fixe, three-course restaurant lunch. Afterwards, you’ll have a whole new appreciation for mint tea and afternoon naps.

  Cooking at guesthouses is usually done by dadas, who are champions of Morocco’s culinary traditions, cooking feasts with whatever’s freshest in the market, usually without a recipe or a measuring cup. If a dada’s delights impress you, ask to thank her personally – it’s good form, and good baraka (auspicious omen) besides.

  Snak Attack

  If you’re still digesting your lavish guesthouse breakfast come lunchtime, try one of the many snaks (kiosks) and small restaurants offering lighter fare – just look for people clustered around sidewalk kiosks, or a sign or awning with the word snak. Many hard-working locals do not take afternoon siestas, and instead eat sandwiches on the go. At the risk of stating the obvious, always join the queue at the one thronged with locals: Moroccans are picky about their snaks, preferring the cleanest establishments that use the freshest ingredients.

  Here’s what you’ll find on offer at a snak:

  Brochettes Kebabs rubbed with salt and spices, grilled on a skewer and served with khoobz and harissa (capsicum-pepper sauce), cumin and salt. Among the most popular varieties are lamb, chicken, kefta (spiced meatballs of ground lamb and/or beef) and the aggressively flavourful ‘mixed meat’ (usually lamb or beef plus heart, kidney and liver).

  Merguez Hot, spicy, delicious homemade lamb sausage, not to be confused with teyhan (stuffed spleen; like liver, only less bitter and more tender) – merguez is usually reddish in colour, while teyhan is pale.

  Pizza Now found at upscale snaks catering to the worldly Moroccan middle class. Look for snaks boasting wood-fired ovens, and try tasty local versions with olives, onions, tomatoes, Atlantic anchovies and wild thyme.

  Shwarma Spiced lamb or chicken roasted on a spit and served with tahina (sesame sauce) or yoghurt, with optional onions, salad, harissa and a dash of sumac (a tart, pickle-flavoured purple spice; highly recommended).

  Tajines The famous Moroccan stews cooked in conical earthenware pots that keep the meat unusually moist and tender. The basic tajines served at a roadside snak are usually made with just a few ingredients, pulled right off a camping stove or kanun (earthenware brazier), and plonked down on a ramshackle folding table. Often you can pick your tajine; point to one that’s been bubbling for an hour or two, with nicely caramelised onions and well-reduced sauce. Don’t let appearances fool you: this could be one of the best tajines you’ll eat in Morocco. Pull up a stool and dig in, using your khoobz as your utensil.

  HEAVENLY COUSCOUS

  Berbers call it seksu, New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne called it one of the dozen best dishes in the world, and when you’re in Morocco, you can call couscous lunch. You know that yellowish stuff that comes in a box, with directions on the side instructing you to add boiling water and let stand for three minutes? That doesn’t count. What Moroccans call couscous is a fine, pale, grain-sized, hand-rolled pasta lightly steamed with aromatic broth until toothsome and fluffy, served with a selection of vegetables and/or meat or fish in a delicately flavoured reduction of stock and spices.

  Since preparing and digesting a proper couscous takes a while, Moroccans usually enjoy it on Fridays, when many have the day or the afternoon off after Friday prayers. Couscous isn’t a simple side dish but rather the main event of a Moroccan Friday lunch, whether tricked out Casablanca-style with seven vegetables, heaped with lamb and vegetables in Fez, or served with tomatoes, fish and fresh herbs in Essaouira. Many delicious couscous dishes come without meat, including the pumpkin couscous of Marrakesh and a simple yet savoury High Atlas version with stewed onions. But scrupulous vegetarians will want to enquire in advance as to whether that hearty stock is indeed vegetarian. Sometimes a couscous dish can be ordered à la carte, but usually it’s the centrepiece of a multicourse lunch or celebratory diffa – and when you get a mouthful of the stuff done properly, you’ll see why.

  The Moroccan Power Lunch

  Some upscale Moroccan restaurants that serve an evening diffa (feast) to tourist hordes serve a scaled-down menu at lunch, when waitstaff are more relaxed and the meal is sometimes a fraction of the price you’d pay for dinner. You might miss the live music and inevitable belly dancing that would accompany a fancy supper – but then again, you might not. Three courses may seem a bit much for lunch, but don’t be daunted: what this usually means is a delightful array of diminutive vegetable dishes, followed by a fluffy couscous and/or a small meat or chicken tajine, capped with the obligatory mint tea and biscuits or fruit.

  Mezze (Salad course) This could be a meal in itself. Fresh bread and three to five small, usually cooked vegetable dishes that might include lemony beet salad with chives, herbed potatoes, cumin-spiked chickpeas, a relish of roasted tomatoes and caramelised onions, pumpkin purée with cinnamon and honey, and roasted, spiced eggplant dip so rich it’s often called ‘aubergine caviar’.

  Main The main course is usually a tajine and/or couscous – a quasi-religious experience in Morocco not to be missed, especially on Fridays. The most common tajine choices are dujaj mqalli bil hamd markd wa zeetoun (chicken with preserved lemon and olives, zesty in flavour and velvety in texture); kefta bil matisha wa bayd (meatballs in a rich tomato sauce with a hint of heat from spices and topped with a sizzling egg); and lehem bil berquq wa luz (lamb with prunes and almonds served sliding off the bone into a saffron-onion sauce). If you’re in Morocco for a while, you may tire of these classic tajine options – until you come across one regional variation that makes all your sampling of chic
ken tajine with lemon and olives worthwhile. That’s when you cross over from casual diner to true tajine connoisseur, and fully appreciate the passionate debates among Moroccans about such minutiae as the appropriate thickness of the lemon rind and brininess of the olives. Variations on the classics are expected, but no self-respecting Moroccan restaurant should ever serve you a tajine that’s stringy, tasteless, watery or overcooked.

  Dessert At lunchtime, dessert is usually sweet mint tea served with almond cookies. You may not think you have room, but one bite of a dreamy kaab el-ghazal (crescent-shaped ‘gazelle’s horns’ cookie stuffed with almond paste and laced with orange-flower water) will surely convince you otherwise. A light, refreshing option is the tart-sweet orange á canelle (orange slices with cinnamon and orange-flower water).

  Foodies who equate Middle Eastern food with Lebanese cuisine stand corrected by Claudia Roden’s Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon, which showcases Moroccan cuisine and won the 2007 James Beard Award (the culinary Oscar).

  TASTY BEAST: MECHOUI

  Special occasions call for Morocco’s very best beast dish: mechoui, an entire slow-roasted lamb. The whole beast is basted with butter, garlic, cumin and paprika, and slow-roasted in a special covered pit until it’s ready to melt into the fire or your mouth, whichever comes first. Local variations may include substituting a calf instead, or stuffing the lamb with some combination of almonds (or other nuts), prunes (or other dried fruit) or couscous. Sometimes mechoui is accompanied by kebabs or kwa (grilled liver kebabs with cumin, salt and paprika). Other than Moroccan weddings, the best place to have mechoui is right off Marrakesh’s Djemaa el-Fna around lunchtime, served with olives and bread in Mechoui Alley. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery or begin a whirlwind museum tour post-mechoui; no amount of post-prandial mint tea will make such exertions feasible without a nap.

  L'Asha (Dinner)

  Dinner in Morocco doesn’t usually start until around 8pm or 9pm, after work and possibly a sunset stroll. Most Moroccans eat dinner at home, but you may notice young professionals, students and bachelors making a beeline for the local snak or pizzeria. In winter you’ll see vendors crack open steaming vats of harira – a hearty soup with a base of tomatoes, onions, saffron and coriander, often with lentils, chickpeas and/or lamb. Dinner at home may often be harira and lunch leftovers, with the notable exception of Ramadan and other celebrations.

  Hold the hot sauce: dousing your tajine with harissa (capsicum-pepper sauce) is generally done in Tunisia, Morocco’s chief rival in the kitchen and on the football field.

  Diffa

  With enough hard currency and room in your stomach, you might prefer restaurants to snak fare for dinner. Most upscale Moroccan restaurants cater to tourists, serving an elaborate prix fixe Moroccan diffa (feast) in a palatial setting. This is not a dine-and-dash meal, but an evening’s entertainment that often includes live music or belly dancing and wine or beer.

  Fair warning about palace restaurants: your meal may come with a side order of kitsch. Many palace restaurants appear to have been decorated by a genie, complete with winking brass lamps, mirrors, swagged tent fabric and tasselled cushions as far as the eye can see. Often it’s the ambience you’re paying for rather than the food, which can vary from exquisitely prepared regional specialities to mass-produced glop. Here’s a rule of thumb: if the place is so cavernous that your voice echoes and there’s a stage set up for a laser show, don’t expect personalised service or authentic Moroccan fare.

  Whether you’re in for a diffa at a Moroccan home (lucky you) or a restaurant, your lavish dinner will include some combination of the following:

  Mezze Up to five different small salads (though the most extravagant palace restaurants in Marrakesh and Fez boast seven to nine).

  Briouat Buttery cigar-shaped or triangular pastry stuffed with herbs and goat’s cheese, savoury meats or egg, then fried or baked.

  Pastilla The justly famed savoury-sweet pie made of warqa (sheets of pastry even thinner than filo), painstakingly layered with pigeon or chicken cooked with caramelised onions, lemon, eggs and toasted sugared almonds, then dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar.

  Couscous Made according to local custom; couscous variations may be made of barley, wheat or corn.

  Tajine Often your choice of one of a couple of varieties.

  Mechoui Or some regional speciality.

  Dessert This may be orange á canelle, a dessert bastilla (with fresh cream and toasted nuts), briouat bil luz (briouat filled with almond paste), sfaa (sweet cinnamon couscous with dried fruit and nuts, served with cream) or kaab el-ghazal.

  Ras el hanout (head of the shop) is Morocco's ubiquitous spice mix. Each spice shop makes up its own particular blend, but cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cloves and ginger all feature.

  VEGETARIANS: YOUR MOROCCAN MENU

  ABreakfast Load up on Moroccan pastries, pancakes, fresh fruit and fresh-squeezed juice. Fresh goat’s cheese and olives from the souq are solid savoury choices with fresh-baked khoobz (bread). Bessara is a delicious bean soup that’s typically meat-free, but steer clear of bubbling roadside vats if you’re squeamish – they may contain snails or sheep’s-head soup.

  ALunch Try the mezze of salads, which come with fresh bread and may range from delicate cucumbers in orange-blossom water to substantial herbed beets laced with kaffir lime. Vegetarians can sometimes, but not always, order a Berber vegetable tajine or Casablanca-style couscous with seven vegetables. Ingredients are bought fresh daily in small quantities and the chef may not have factored vegetarians into the restaurant’s purchases – so call ahead if you can. Pizza is another widely available and inexpensive menu option, best when spiked with local herbs and olives.

  ASnacks Market stalls feature cascades of dried figs, dates and apricots alongside towering cones of roasted nuts with salt, honey, cinnamon, cane sugar or hot pepper. Chickpeas and other pulses are roasted, served hot in a paper cone with cumin and salt, and are not to be missed. Tea-time menus at swanky restaurants may feature briouats, cigar-shaped pastries stuffed with goat’s cheese or egg and herbs, plus finger sandwiches, pastries and cakes. If that’s not enough, there’s always ice cream, and mint tea with cookies or nuts are hardly ever more than a carpet shop away.

  ADinner For a hearty change of pace from salads and couscous, try a vegetarian pasta (anything with eggplant is especially tasty) or omelette (usually served with thick-cut fries). If you’re staying in a Moroccan guesthouse, before you leave in the morning you can usually request a vegetarian tajine made to order with market-fresh produce.

  Drinks

  To wash your diffa down and stay hydrated, you’ll need a good amount of liquid. Day and night, don’t forget to drink plenty of bottled or purified water. Vying to quench your thirst are orange-juice vendors loudly singing their own praises, and water vendors in fringed tajine-shaped hats clanging brass bowls together.

  Moroccan tap water is often potable, though not always – so stick with treated water or local mineral water. Sidi Ali and Aïn Saiss are the biggest brands, along with sparkling Oulmes.

  If you’re offered Moroccan mint tea, don’t expect to bolt it and be on your way. Mint tea is the hallmark of Moroccan hospitality, and a sit-down affair that takes around half an hour. If you have the honour of pouring the tea, pour the first cup back into the teapot to help cool it and dissolve the sugar. Then starting from your right, pour each cup of tea from as high above the glass as you can without splashing. Your hosts will be most impressed.

  Moroccan mint tea ('Berber whiskey') may be ubiquitous after meals, but you can find a mean cup of coffee in Morocco, too. Most of it is French-pressed, and delivers a caffeine wallop to propel you through the souqs and into the stratosphere. Moroccans tend to take their coffee thick and black; ask for nus-nus ('half and half') to have it mixed with steamed milk.

  For recipes and writing on Moroccan food, check out the mouth-watering website of food blogger Maroc Mama (www.marocmama.com).


  Moroccan Beer, Wine & Spirits

  Yes, you can drink alcohol in Morocco without offending local sensibilities, as long as you do it discreetly. Serving alcohol within Moroccan medinas may be frowned upon, and liquor licences an expensive bureaucratic nightmare – but many Moroccan guesthouses and restaurants get around these hurdles by offering booze in a low voice, and serving it out of sight indoors or on a terrace. So if you’re in the mood for a beer and don’t find it on the menu, you might want to ask the waiter in a low voice, speakeasy-style.

  One note of caution: quality assurance is tricky in a Muslim country where mixologists, micro-brewers and licensed sommeliers are in understandably short supply, and your server may not be able to make any personal recommendations from the wine menu. Since wines are subject to unpredictable heat exposure in transit and storage, be sure to taste your wine before the server leaves the table – red wines are especially subject to spoilage. Don’t hesitate to send back a drink if something about it seems off; your server will likely take your word for it.