Mouth Watering Moroccan Food

Moroccan Food is known worldwide. Every city has a Moroccan restaurant and those same restaurants are always busy. This works because Moroccan food is so varied and has something to appeal to everyone. It has wonderful vegetarian dishes. You can get salads and chutneys/relishes or simple and delicious tagines. They have baked dishes, fried foods or boiled. They do amazing desserts and they have a large French influence throughout their menus.

In Morocco, the local restaurants are affordable and enjoyable. The meals are meant to be social and shared. So what can you expect at a Moroccan restaurant in Casablanca, Marrakech, Fez or even a little village you might stumble across? Let me share some experiences.

At almost every restaurant, you sit down at a low table with comfortable cushioned chairs and immediately the server will bring the menu - and several bowls of olives. Different kinds of olives. Unfortunately, I don't enjoy olives and I am told I miss out. My Dad thought the olives were the best part of the meal. Next comes the local flat bread with Balsamic vinegar and olive oil in a dish. Zaalouka is often served as well which is a dip of roasted aubergines (eggplant) with garlic, paprika and other spices. The 'other spices' makes each Zaalouka unique to it's maker. I have had awesome Zaalouka and some that are sort of 'miehh' where you can take it or leave it.

You break off pieces of the bread (usually flat bread) to dip in the vinegar/oil mix or the Zaalouka and eat it as you decide on your menu. You can order other dishes to add to the table that could be small salads, relish-like dishes or pickled vegetables and can include Babaganoush, Tomato and Cucumber salad, Lentils and Chickpeas etc.

The menu will undoubtedly have tagines of all sorts: chicken, seafood, goat, beef, lamb or vegetables. Tagine traditionally refers to the clay dish that is flat on the bottom with a conical lid. It should be cooked over a wood fire but now is cooked on a stove more often than not. (see photo from Cafe Tiggaline here) In North America people will cook tagine recipes in a Dutch oven - it works but does not quite have the same taste as a real tagine dish. You can buy tagine dishes in every market in Morocco but you can also buy tagine dishes online - even www.Wayfair sells them!

Tagine dishes often have meat, with vegetables and spices placed around the meat and cooked all together. The flavours combine as it cooks and simmers. Its conical lid also helps keep all the flavours cycling together with no loss of flavour. This dish is traditionally served at the table in the tagines. Everyone shares the contents by scooping it up with the flatbread.

In modern restaurants, the tagine is made as an individual serving. The two-piece dish is brought and placed on the table and then the lid is dramatically lifted. As the lid is removed, the aroma of the dish fills your nostrils and your mouth starts watering.

Other dishes that might be on the menu are a variety of side dishes that again might contain lentils, tomatoes, olives, or coriander. Delicious dishes are on the menu too. Like B'stilla, kefta (a type of meatball), harira soup, lentil soup, couscous, and lots of vegetarian dishes which are all hard to choose between. And yes, unfortunately, camel might also be on the menu. One positive aspect is that they do use all parts of a camel if they have killed it. But for me, it was sad to see them hanging outside a butcher shop.

One of my favourites is B'stilla. This dish is so rich that it cannot be eaten in any quantity - at least not by me. It is made of flaky pastries layered with delicious pigeon meat and crushed almonds. It is exquisite! and it is a culinary delight, best served in Morocco. I do not know how they actually cook it because it just melts in your mouth. Because it is so rich it is also best shared with a friend.

Morocco is also known for its street food. A wander through any medina or market will show you many stalls with mouth-watering foods cooked and broiled over small portable stoves or grills. Kebabs of all types are popular, as are some very interesting offerings - liver skewers, snails, potatoes and different dishes from cheek meat to tongue. The best-known street-food is from Marrakech's market at Jmaa el Fna which is a large medina or old market where tourists wander, shop and eat. It is one place that must be experienced BUT --- hold onto your wallet, hold your backpack and don't show how much money you have in your wallet -- or you might be taken advantage of and will forever regret going to the market.

One of my first visits to the market was on my back-packing trip where my female friend and I travelled through the whole country. In Marrakech, we found wonderful hotel options just off the big Jmaa el Fna square. We only had to walk down one small alley to get to a larger alley that led straight to the square. We ventured out at night to see the activities. There were stilt walkers, fortune tellers, snake charmers, story tellers (not in English) and monkeys that cranked the music box. Things you see in movies but thought were made up for the movies. On this particular trip we took our day-packs (small back-packs) with our money in them. We put them on backward so we could put our arms around them and padlocked the zippers. While we checked out all activities we were

pushed and squeezed between teenagers. I had someone run their hand down my leg no less than four times, looking for a pocket. The last time I grabbed the hand and found who it belonged to and yelled at him 'I have no pockets, I have no money for you to take'. He yanked his arm away and dissolved into the crowd. He was probably 18 years old. Both of us were surrounded separately and squeezed between groups of young boys as they tried to open the zippers on our day-packs. An older man followed us for about 30 minutes, just watching. It was a little un-nerving and made us a little paranoid.

Finally, we had had enough of the open square with the little groups of activities and aggressive crowds. We grabbed some street food and bags of dried apricots and almonds and went back to our hotel.

There are food carts all around the open area of the market and some fancy restaurants up high in the buildings that line the market, where you can relax after your intense shopping and watch the sun set behind the Koutoubia mosque.

This is only part of the food options. Foodies will love Morocco. The food is picturesque and I am sorry I did not take more pictures. I have had to use some pictures from other people here. But just know that you will not be disappointed - no matter your dietary needs.

But that's not all... then there is the tea. Morocco is known for its mint tea. Everywhere you go you will be offered mint tea. If you stop to look through decorative pottery at a stall and the owner of the store starts to chat with you, soon he will offer you mint tea. You might be looking through 100s of carpets and the owner will offer you mint tea as refreshment while you look. It is the 'tea' of Morocco and it demonstrates their generosity and their spirit of welcoming visitors. I drank so much mint tea in the first year I was there that I cannot drink it anymore - I get nauseous just smelling it. If you are the same - they do have other teas. One lovely lady told me that this nausea is also common to many Moroccans. 'We can give another tea' she said kindly and brought out an apple tea - similar to the Turkish teas. It was a lovely alternative. In the market stalls you can find all manner of teas - the mint teas, the apple teas but also many black teas. And to make the tea authentic, buy some of the decorative glass goblets that are used to serve the tea in. They often have gold patterns etched on them but you may also find brightly painted ones. You can then serve your friends back home some of the tea you purchased in the small glasses you bought in a Moroccan souk.