Moroccan Magic: Marrakech Food Discovery – Natural, flavored, bathed in cumin and mostly sweet, Moroccan cuisine piques the interest of gourmets like few countries can.
Morocco is such a wonderful food destination because it blends some wonderful European and Oriental influences into traditional African cuisine, making every food tasting an exciting adventure.
Moroccan Magic: Marrakech Food Discovery
This food tour is special to me because it’s the first one made in Africa, so it has two parts, both insightful and hopefully delicious.
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That’s why I’m going to do more than usual, which is to share the top dishes and restaurants we tried in Morocco, but also to take you on a delicious journey of Moroccan cuisine. I will spice them up with insights gleaned from my research and food experiences in Fez, Rabat, Chefchaouen and Marrakech.
You can’t escape it, no matter where you stay or where you go. It followed us around Morocco, from north to south, passing through Fes, Rabat and Marrakesh as a Moroccan drink par excellence.
Samir, the manager of the first Moroccan riad we stayed at, greeted us late in the evening with a steaming kettle and three glasses on a silver tray. Still standing, he raised his right hand in the air and poured the magical mint tea with fascinating precision into the three small glasses on the table until the drink was garnished with mint leaves.
He then joined us for service and started sharing his insights about Fes and asking about what we wanted to visit in Morocco.
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The mint leaves in our glasses were unusually large, thick and aromatic, very different from the mint varieties I’ve tried before, and maybe that’s why this tea was more delicious than expected. It was syrupy in consistency and quite sweet even without added sugar.
Moroccans drink mint tea at any time of the day, so when it comes to guests, it is always at the center of their hospitality.
In Rabat, when we tried to skip the mint tea ritual because we were in a hurry to photograph the sunset, we found ourselves bound by this tradition. Our host at Dar Soufa even brought some delicious cookies with mint tea and said it was impossible to miss this ritual of hospitality “because it’s a tradition”.
I don’t usually like to drink mint tea, but this trip to Morocco made me appreciate it. While doing some research for the trip, I found a very nice recipe for Moroccan mint tea that also includes black tea leaves. Can’t wait for you to try it at home!
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Bread is the core of every Moroccan meal and serves a variety of purposes: it can be a stand-alone breakfast, a fork for juicy tajines or just a companion to salads.
Moroccan bread is natural and fresh, and is baked every day by the women of any household. It is considered sacred, so no piece of bread is lost or thrown away.
Household extra bread is sold in small batches in Morocco’s markets by both men and women, although souks are usually reserved for men, while the home is a woman’s territory.
Women who sell fresh bread in the markets usually carry it in small baskets covered with white cloth, probably in order to keep it as warm as possible. In Rabat, I saw men selling bread from heated carts, similar to hot dog stands.
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Bread as breakfast is another thing I found interesting in Moroccan food culture. Because every Riad we stayed in during our time in Morocco (Fes, Rabat, Marrakesh) had almost the same types of bread and pancakes served every morning for breakfast.
Batbout – Moroccan pita bread – is the cutest of all because it’s so tiny, puffy and delicious. It can be served with spices or honey, and it is cooked in a pan or rack, on the stove.
Mahrash or Khobz dial Smida – Moroccan semolina bread – is a widespread variety of Moroccan bread. It can be served as part of a Moroccan breakfast, but its main purpose is to serve as a fork for tajine.
Beghrir – Moroccan Honeycomb Pancakes – are soft, spongy and the most delicious type of pancake I’ve tried. They are made from semolina – the same ingredient used to make couscous, and were my favorite part of our Moroccan breakfast.
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Rghaif – square-shaped Moroccan pancakes – look more like a soft pie crust than a pancake, but they’re also very good. Every Moroccan breakfast included them alongside the Moroccan honeycomb pancake – behrir.
In the northern part of the country and in the old parts of the city (I saw this in Fes Medina), children have a lunch break at school, so they can eat at home with their parents.
Btw, I can’t wait to read “Commensality: From Everyday Food to Feast”! Because my impression of Morocco is that they are very interested in the concept of connecting the family with food.
I don’t believe I’ve yet visited a country with such a strong sense of contemporaneity as Morocco, and it’s a wonderful goal in life – to bring the family together for daily meals.
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Although you may have seen beautiful ceramic pots or tasted delicious dishes made with tagine, it might be interesting to know that there is another type of tagine – tanjia.
Tajine/Tagine is a female dish, tanjia/tangia is a male dish, and this difference is not just a variation of words. Tajine is cooked by women, and tanji is cooked by men. It gets even more interesting when you watch the cooking process…
Tajine and tanjiya use similar ingredients – meat, vegetables and spices, but while tajine comes in many varieties of meat and vegetables, tanjiya is limited to meats like beef and lamb and has fewer or no vegetables. For now, it seems that these two dishes were created specifically to suit the slightly different eating habits of men and women.
The vessels used to cook these dishes are both ceramic, but while the tajin has a cup-shaped lid over the plate, the tanjia looks like a large amphora-shaped flower pot and has no lid, but the top is usually covered with aluminum foil.
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The differences go beyond the pots and ingredients used. Women prepare tajines in their homes, usually on the stove or in the oven, but tanjis are a completely different story.
The process of making tanja starts in the souk, the food market, where you first buy the pot, then the meat, spices and maybe vegetables.
Layer them in a tanji on the go, usually in the morning or after lunch, then head to one of Morocco’s many hammams. Here you will find the person in charge of heating the hammam and leave your tanjiya with him.
4 to 6 hours later, depending on the type and age of your meat, go get your plate. It is a slow cooking process because the tanjia is only baked in a nest inside the embers used to heat the hammam.
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If you read part 2 of this article, you will learn more about our tanjia, carefully prepared by Mohamed, the very nice manager of Riad Melhoun & Spa in Marrakech.
So every morning and evening we drank a glass in every Riad we stayed in (Fes, Rabat, Marrakesh), next to our breakfast plates filled with Moroccan varieties of bread and pancakes or as a drink before bed.
It’s the best orange juice I’ve ever had, and when I tried the lemon variety, I realized why – the fruit is sweeter and tastier than the ones you get at home, making juices and sauces as sweet as honey.
Couscous is a Maghreb dish, widespread in, but not limited to, North Africa – it is also a favorite in southern Andalusian cuisine. Back in April, when I visited Granada, couscous with vegetables and raisins was served in small ceramic bowls as an appetizer in most traditional restaurants.
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This couscous ritual accompanies a lamb or chicken dish with chickpeas, caramelized onions, raisins and spices. I tried the latter in Chefchaouen and it’s delicious, even if I’m not a fan of couscous.
Moroccan couscous is interesting when it comes to spices and side ingredients, and I think it’s such a big part of Moroccan culinary culture that you have to try it.
Traveling through the olive hills, on our way to Chefchaouen, made me wonder what Moroccan olives taste like (perhaps because most of the olives and olive oil in the EU are from Italy, Spain or Greece).
Samir, our host at Riad Fes Baraka, brought a handful of spicy olives with our tagines. Mind reading or what? 🙂 It was love at first taste! They are so good I had two bowls.
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The market is filled with small mountains of spicy olives, so you can try them at every food market.
Souk or Souk is a term that describes any African market, whether related to food or not, but also Oriental markets. For example, Israel uses the term “shaken” to describe the same type of market. In Morocco, souks are usually inside the old one