djemma el fnaa: a vegetarian's dilemma

The call of maghreb sears the air from the minaret of koutoubia which towers at seventy metres behind djemma el fnaa. It is dusk. Henna artists are scattered through the square like checkers. From the top of the minaret it must look as if the place is burning. Kerosene lights blaze behind white smoke.

The flutes of the snake charmers compete with the drums of Saharan nomads as monkeys on short chains are offered by men with Polaroid cameras. Deeper in the crowd Berber string orchestras wail. A storyteller in a white robe and red hat recounts an aparently mesmerizing tale with grand gesticulations in perfect time. A five year old yawns as his mother scolds him in a family play. An old man sits alone in an opening in the pack, holding a violin in one hand and a hat out in the other; nobody pays him any attention and the violin never gets played. It's an orchestrated chaos.




There are 34 stalls selling freshly squeezed but watered down jus d'orange around the edge of djemma. Each cart goes through about 200kg of oranges a day. Interspersed between the juice carts are 29 carts selling dried apricots, figs, four different grades of dates , walnuts, almonds, praline, and sunflower seeds. Flies feast.

At the front of the square are six carts with big copper urns full of a sugary spiced tea and plates of semlou which most closely resembles in taste and texture gingerbread cookie dough. In front of the juice carts rugs are layed out and covered with dried lizards, cages of turtles, argan pruducts, twigs, leaves and mascara applicators. Herberists in blue robes and white or black turbans sit cross legged in the middle with a set of copper scales.

In front of the herberists are five carts selling bowls of snails in a cuminy broth. Mustapha at cart number 1 has a big smile and bushy mustache. His cart is surrounded in people pulling snails out with toothpicks and tossing the shells into a plastic trough. In the middle are four rows of food stalls. Touts with an uncanny skill of knowing where you are from try and pull you in with tales of their friend, cousin, or brother who just happens to live in your city. Some sell grilled brochettes, cous cous, and tagines. In one corner stalls sell bowls of harira with honey cakes and dates. There is the odd stall selling fried seafood and a few selling grilled mergez and kefta.


Smack dab in the middle of it all is a carnivore's delight. Men cut slabs of lamb off of primal cuts and heap it onto plastic plates. There are brains, lungs, tongues, shoulders and shanks. Faces are peeled off lamb heads and given a rough chop. Khoobz (bread) is scored, dunked in a pot of lamb fat and served on the side. An earthenware cauldron of tanjia simmers...




Tanjia #10



1 lb Stewing Beef

1 tbsp Cumin

1 tsp Saffron

1 Preserved Lemon, julienne

6 cloves Garlic, minced

3 Onions, minced

1/4 cup Olive Oil

1/4lb Butter

Salt

Pepper

Water or Veal Stock to cover



This is the recipe they gave me at stall number ten, they didn't give me any quantities though so I just guessed it. Brown the meat in the olive oil, add the garlic, onions, spices and lemon, add the butter and let it brown a bit. Cover in the stock and water, and cook it low for about three or four hours. Don't skim the fat off the top, it should be savage like that. Serve with bread (surprised?) and a little bit of spiced salt on the side (cumin, fennel, coriander, black pepper, salt).

where the sahara slips into the sea

The man with the shaved head covered in a white skull cap is the euctioneer at the fish market. He has a voice like a Harley Davidson and skin like the black leather interior of a brand new Mercedes Benz. His baritone voice revs when he calls out the numbers "AAASHREEEN!!" Men in white lab coats wave tickets and shout numbers back as a tub of Dorado is dumped onto the tile floor. Tubs of skate, snapper, cod, mackerel, and hammerhead sharks wait in a line. Wait, hammerhead sharks?


Abdlhalak and Abdlhamed are brothers from El Jadida working as fishermen in Tarfaya. Abdlhamed is the elder and has a paintbush mustache and a grin like a lightbulb just went on his head. His teeth are shockingly white for a Morroccan. Abdlhalak is 23, and like most residents of Tarfaya his second language is Spanish. He runs with a tight crew of El Jadidians. He invited me to stay in his ten meter square room of a house with his brother and friend Arbie. Arbie looks a bit like James Dean and is usually found leaning up against shopfronts in a denim jacket and jeans, his brown teeth gnawing on a Berber toothbrush, also commonly called a stick.



Hussein is the fastest net maker in town. When anyone spoke about him they made the fat belly signal even though he was hardly fat, a bit stocky at most. Nobody in Tarfaya was fat. Two of his roommates were plongeurs and dove for lobsters on the floor of the Atlantic. I was amazed they could hold their breath for extended periods as I was trying to decipher the charade as they sat there smoking their kif pipes. The fourth roommate was tall and lanky with a pock marked face and wide smile. He became known as the criminal d'Espagna after being shipped home from Spain in handcuffs without his papers. The Canary Islands are only eight hours away in their fishing boats.

Moustaphah is the only person who 'speaks english' in Tarfaya. He used to be the goalie for the Tarfaya Football Club until he injured his knee and shoulder and lost half of his left ear in a fishing accident. He is a ltlle too proud of the fact that he managed to learn english by chatting to girls on line and never went to school. He liked American women and said he would never love a Morroccan woman because 'they are dogs'. He wanted to come to Laayoune with me when I left so we could 'get some whiskey and bitches and have really very good time'. I spent a lot of time trying to avoid him which was not always very easy.



Akhmed has an eleven month old camel at his house which is a mansion by Tarfayan standards. He was born in Fance and has made surfing trips to California and Indonesia. "Paradis" he would say of the latter. The interior of his house was covered in salvaged metal from airplanes and shipwrecks he found on the beach, the odd piece of driftwood, and labels from all the litter. Strange labels were penciled on the wall in pencil. Old road signs hung with bold slashes of paint across the Arabic script. He can be seen coming and going around town riding on his donkey cart (aka Tarfaya taxi) or bicycle in his mirrored aviators, blue sweater, and khaki cargo pants. He is the coolest dude in Tarfaya.



Yussef and H'messi worked at the hotel. Yussef is from Casablanca and always wears red Coca-Cola sweatpants over his jeans, just to spite the 29 degrees. His gums are black and well receded and only his two front teeth stuck down from the top like worn down pencil erasers. He used to swim the butterfly and play soccer for Casa Raja. H'messi is from the village of Aoulouz near Tarroudant in the Souss Valley. He is Berber and is never without his Barcelona jersey.

Mermer is the chef and manager at the hotel. He has the manner and charisma of a maitre d' at a three Michelin star restaurant. He speaks with an elegant tongue and learns English phrases at the snap of a finger with a perfect accent. He did well in scool but chose to work as a fisherman instead of persuing an academic career. After a few years of fishing he started cooking on the boats and then in resturants all over Morocco. His mouth is a little too big for his broad face and smooshes to the left a little when he smiles. His black curly hair sticks out from under his orange baseball cap like steel wool.


The fish market is in the port at the end of the pier and surrounded by sand dunes and concrete pylons. Upside down fishing boats are scattered about as if the wind has just blown them in from the sea. Abdlahalak and I squated on the pier cleaning skate and scaling fish and brought it back to the hotel for Mermer to fry up. He marinated in chermoulah, dredged it in flour and then fried it in olive oil and served it with olives salad and bread. He took a giant mackerel and made a tajine for a bunch of us for dinner. A few days later we hopped from boat to boat until we reached a boat in the middle of the harbour with crabs in nets hanging over the edge and brought two back to his house for lunch. The crabs were cooked in a plastic bag in a shallow pot of water. The bag trapped the steam, Moroccan sous vide.




Chermoullah

1 bunch Parsley, chopped
1 bunch Cilantro, chopped
1 bulb Garlic, chopped
2 Shallots, chopped
2 Lemons, zest and juice
1 Tbsp Dried Chili
2 Tbsp Coriander
2 Tbsp Fennel Seeds
4 Tbsp Paprika
1 Tbsp Cumin
1 Cup Olive Oil

Mermer's Tajine du Mer

1 cup chermoullah
2 red onions, cut lengthways into 8 wedges
4 carrots, cut into large batons
2 zucchini, large batons
1/2 preserved lemon, chopped
6 tomatoes, sliced
6 small potatoes, cut into wedges
1 cup green olives
1/2 cup olive oil
6 fish steaks, aboutt 120g each

I'm assuming none of you have a tajine to cook this in but a wide pot about four inches deep with a tight fitting lid will do.

Heat up the pan on medium heat, add the oil and saute onions, carrots, potatoes, and zucchini for a minute or two. Add the preserved lemon, chermoullah, cook for a bit, and then add about a litre of water. Place the fish steaks on top, then the tomato slices, and olives, put the lid on and simmer slowly for about a half an hour or so. To be authentic everything should be well cooked. Serve with bread to scoop everyting up with your hands.



Abdlhalak's Crab Tajine

2 large crabs,cooked and picked clean (about 2lbs crab meat)
2 cloves garlic
1 chili, whole
4, tomatoes, cut in half and then grated. The skin won't go through the grater and you'll have something like a can of crushed tomatoes
1 bunch cilantro
1 cup green olives
salt and pepper

Saute the garlic, and chili, add the tomatoes, crab, olives and cilantro, cook for a few minutes. The chili is put on the side and if you like it spicy you open up the chili and rub your bread in it before taking a pinch of crab.

pouring the tea and crossing the eyes

he's looking away to hide his crossed eyes

The propane tanks are always red. Except for the times when they are blue. The red tanks make a better cup of tea. Water is scooped from a big white plastic basin with a small green plastic bucket and poured into an aluminum kettle which is put on a burner fixed to the top of the propane tank. The burner is sparked and flames curl up the sides of the pot as it struggles to reach a boil. Three spoons of Chinese green tea go into the petite steel teapot and about half a cup ofwater from the kettle, which has not yet boiled, is poured in.

"Great" I says to myself "nothin better for the old gastrointestinal tract than tepid Moroccan tap water." I could have said this aloud with a smile and everyone would have just nodded and smiled back in agreement.

Larbi lets it steep for a minute and then pours it into one of five glass tumblers on a round steel tray and pours about a cup of water from the kettle into the teapot and swirls it around. He puts it down, picks it up, and swirls it around some more, and a mirky gray liquid is poured out into two more of the glass tumblers. Now the teapot is filled with water from the kettle (which still has not yet boiled), that first glass of tea is poured back in, and it gets put on the burner and finally reaches a boil.

Now the teapot is removed from the burner and a bucket of sugar bricks is opened up. A Morroccan sugar brick is equivalent to five or six sugar cubes I'd guess. One goes in. And another. And another half of one just for good measure. (Bear in mind this teapot couldn"t hold more than a scant litre). A bunch of mint is produced and leaves or torn off and thrown in to the pot. The lid is closed and five glasses of tea are poured. But it's not ready yet. Each glass is poured back into the teapot, and the process is repeated. Larbi pours a small taster, tastes it makes a clearly unsatisfied face and repeats the process a third time. Sixteen glasses of tea have been poured by this point, all the glasses remain empty, but at least the half pound of sugar is dissolved.

In the next step one glass is poured from a great height, as high as you can manage. That glass is then poured into the next, and the next and so on. This step could go on for a good five minutes. The tea is so thick with sugar that a mousse is formed in the bottom of each glass. When there's about an inch of mousse in the bottom of each glass the remaining tea is poured back into the pot and the glasses are filled and handed out. The tea is sticky, sweet, minty fresh, and of course by now, stone cold.

In a completely unrelated story which I think is actually completely related, there is an unusually high incidence of cross-eyedness here. I see at least one a day and it's really starting to freak me out. One eye stares at me through the narrow slit of a burkha while the other watches a cat cross the street. I never know where to look when I'm buying water in the shop. Does he think I'm stealing something? Is he checking me out? What does he want from me?!? Maybe I need to get mysemf a Fatima's hand to ward off that evil eye.

And if that's not enough, alot of people wear glasses, which is fine. I have nothing against people who wear glasses, some of my best friends wear glasses. Heck my whole family wears glasses, but the glasses here have this circular lense in the middle which magnify the eyes. The only thing that freaks me out more than a crossed eye is a magnified cross eye. It's gotta be the sugar.

Morroccan Mint Tea (or a recipe for crossed eyes)

mittle bit of grean tee

littme bit of mint

mittle tib of water (you see!!! ive drank moo tuch tea and my cryes era eossed)

what you think is a lot of sugar, times three, basically it's like making simple syrup

Seriously? I just explained the whole process and now you want the method? It's tea for Mohammed's sake. The tea will taste better if:

a. you keep your pinky daintily extended for the duration of the process

b. pour the tea from a great height

c. twirl the glass in your hand as you pour from glass to glass

d. take tiny little sips and slurp loudly. you gots ta airate that shit, ya dig?

Look at Imlil and the Ourika Valley while you drink your tea.

fish flop

"What does the fish remind you of?"
"Other fish."
"What do other fish remind you of?"
"Other fish."

-Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Maybe wearing flip flops to the fish market in Essaouira wasn't such a good idea after all. The fishy seawater covering the tile floor comes halfway up the soles of my stylish footwear and inevitably creeps up and over the sides, creating a slimy paste between skin and rubber.

Boats start pulling into port sometime after nine, their catch is offloaded into carts and hauled through the rampart gate and along Place Moulay Hassan.

A squadron of seagulls hover in a loose formation above while a batallion of cats crouch in corners. White splashes the concrete about a meter behind the cart; the squadron is bombing.

Tourists pose for photos on the ramparts while a man in a hat cleans squid beneath a lamp post that is blue on the underneath and white on top.

He throws a handful of guts in the air and the squadron dives as the batallion lunges forward. The cart makes a narrow escape through Bab al-Minzah. It continues down Avenue Oqba ben Nafii to where it turns into Avenue de L'Istiqlal and then takes a left on Rue Abdelaziz el Fechtaly. Around the corner and past the pyramids of spice blends, baskets of Berber viagra and Argan products is the fish souk.

A boy squatting on the ground behind basins of snails, and tiny squid smaller than your pinky looks up as I round the corner. It's about eleven o'clock and things aren't quite in full swing yet. Tables in the centre of the open square are covered in sardines, mackerel, shark and conger eels. A step up on the left are the big fish, steaks cut from the tail end and blood dripping from the spine, down the white tile and into the Atlantic bouillon below.

At the southern end tables are covered in dorade, rouget, St Pierre, snappers, langoustines, shrimps, marrons, and sole much smaller than the sole of your shoe. I asked the monger if the sole were Oceanwise and he just looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language so I buy a dorade and rouget for twenty dirham (about three dollars).

Up three concrete steps behind these tables are rows of tables and benches. In a whole in the wall is small kitchen with a blackened wok filled with smoking oil and about a dozen of the baby sole. A big steel box of a broiler sits just out the front. I hand over my fish, "griller sil vous plait". The fish are split but nothing is removed, spread with a reddish spice paste, put in a basket and in the broiler they go.

I am seated at one of the tables across from a couple I presume is vacationing from Casa, they look too metropolitan to by Essaourrians. They are tearing into some grilled shrimp while a group of four next to me is tearing into sole, sardines, shrimps, and fried calamari. Cartoonish fish skeletons fly in every direction. A bowl of olives, a small plate of Morrocan salad, a basket of bread, a dish of harissa, and the fish, broiled slightly past perfection is placed in front of me with that Moroccan grace and I tear in with my hands...

Harissa

5 long red chiles, seeds removed if you don't want it too spicy

1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped

2 tomatoes, rougly chopped

1 clove garlic

juice and zest of 1 lemon

60ml olive oil

salt, pepper

Put everything in a food processor, or ideally a mortar and blend until smoothish.

Spice Paste

I have no idea. One spice merchant told me his fish blend had 26 spices in it. Everyone's is unique so why shouldn't yours be? Mix together some coriander, cumin, fennel, black pepper, maybe a clove, dried ginger, paprika, cinnamon, and whatever else your little heart desires. Toast the spices, grind and blend with a bit of olive oil to make a paste. Get your self some fish, prawns, squid, or whatever kind of aquatic dwelling creature you fancy, slop on the spice paste some salt and through it under the broiler until it's cooked. Don't worry too much if you overcook it a bit either, just say it's authentic.

Moroccan Salad

6 tomatoes

1 green pepper

half a cucumber

half a red onion

ground cumin, salt, pepper

olive oil

Dice the vegetables fairly small as if you were making a salsa. Season with the cumin, salt, and pepper. Toss with a bit of olive oil. If you can get your hands on some Argan oil through a dash of that in there too. The restaurants that put Argan oil in their salads here are a bit too upmarket for this vagabond.


Serve the seafood with salad, olives, harissa, bread, a chunk of lemon and tear in with your hands. Or hand rather, remember the left is for cleaning your ass and the right for filling your face. A beer would be nice too, ensh'allah.

les velos du maroc

Now I know you've all been on the edge of your seat wondering what the bikes in Morocco look like, so without any further adieu...