So when’s the last time you had some high-caliber Moroccan fare? Yeah same here. Actually, truthfully, for me it was about 10 years ago at Dar Maghreb in Hollywood (owned and operated by Pierre, a cantankerous old French architecture student of mine). Well it just doesn’t come up very often: ”Hey we haven’t had a tajine in a while…” But of course here everyday is Moroccan food! And I am making a good effort at sampling the fare.
But first, there is a reason that mint tea is called “Whisky Maroccaine” here. I was served it at the hotel check-in, every time I sat in the lobby, when they tried to sell me rug, after every lunch and dinner and even from the little cart on the train. The tea is invariably accompanied by little anisette cookies. So, if you like your Doublemint gum in hot liquid form accompanied by sticks of black licorice, Morocco’s got that going on.
It turns out that my riad in Fes is a specialist in traditional Fassi (of Fez) dining, which, in turn, is supposedly the best in the country. So I took three meals there and was not disappointed. I feared a lack of variety, but was delighted by the nuance and subtle flavor profiles. Each meal was two-and-a-half hours, so I was definitely allowed to savor the tastes.
‘Moroccan Salad’ usually begins a meal. This is not a lettuce salad- it’s more of an ‘Antipasto Maroccano’- cooked and marinated veggies. Typically, the produce I saw in the market stalls that morning were plated before me that evening. Each night I was served three or four. There was cauliflower roasted with harissa and olive oil, carrots cooked in orange flower water, cinnamon and honey (it tasted like perfume), braised fennel with mint and saffron, a garlicky eggplant mayonnaise (like a Lebanese baba ganouj, but lighter) over steamed artichokes, zucchini prepared in a fiery ratatouille style, fava beans in oil with preserved lemon and mint. The salads are always served with a little flattened dense dinner roll, kind of like a communion wafer on steroids (and without the guilt).
However, the cuisine really centers around meats, particularly barbecued in a kebab style or baked in a clay pot called a tajine. Chicken, lamb and beef are used, the lamb being my favorite (sorry Kara, those cute little buggers are tasty slow roasted). What changes up the flavors of the tajines are the herbs, spices and other flavorings they use. There’s preserved lemon which imparts a heady citron fragrance, dried fruits like dates, apricots and grapes that yield sweet bursts like a chutney, a liberal use of cinnamon, ground and whole almonds, a wide variety of olives, some incredibly salty and, of course, North Africa’s favorite red pepper condiment, harissa, potent and fiery.
My favorite by far was the lamb tajine with caramelized onion, preserved lemon and roasted almonds. After sopping up the last bits of sauce with my communion host I told my waiter Omar (I developed a strong food relationship with this guy) that if Americans knew shit like that existed in Morocco we would invade them next. Actually I didn’t, but I really, really wanted to.
The real Fassi specialty, however, is b’stilla. It sounds improbable as an even remotely edible dish but here it is: ground pigeon, eggs, ground almonds, nutmeg and cinnamon wrapped in a pastry that’s halfway between a sheet of phyllo and puff pastry. Dust liberally with powdered sugar and punctuate it with a lovely zigzag pattern of more cinnamon and, voilà, you have a stuffed chunk of Charlie Brown’s torso.
Once you’re beyond the idea of eating pigeon or, what I consider, winged rodents, it is actually quite good and that pigeon is one of the few weird meats that actually doesn’t taste like chicken- more like a mild beef, actually. I asked Omar if they farm pigeons. He said that they do, but also they can be hunted. I noted that there didn’t seem to be a lot of pigeons in public squares like in Europe. He smiled and said, “Monsieur, I think in Fes we have solved that problem.”
I decided not to pursue my thought about not having seen many dogs around either.
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