Foods I have Known in Morocco

Now, to turn to my favorite topic... eating.

On my first day, I enjoyed a delicious tagine with lamb, prune, and onions. Woah, lots of onions. But it was delicious. Finger-licking-I-can't-even-tell-you delicious. It was at a suspiciously touristy looking rooftop overlooking the square... and you had to write down your own order... but it was GREAT.


After a big meal like that, you need some mint tea. I don't know if they thought I left without paying, or if they were just really in a hurry, but when I got back from the bathroom they'd cleared all my things away. So, I left and went elsewhere for tea. Ended up at a lovely riad, Dar Timtam. There, I drank some lovely tea. Splendid!

I know you're curious what I ate at that stall on the market... well, here it is:

Clockwise from top left: spicy salsa-type-stuff, mild salsa-type-stuff, olives (I almost liked them), traditional bread, lamb sausages, and the best eggplant in the entire world. Now, I think eggplant is okay. But this eggplant was AMAZING. How could a simple eggplant taste so good??? I have no idea. It is worth the struggle to emerge from the booths single just to taste this eggplant. Mmmhhh...

At Jardin Majorelle I enjoyed a very unique and strangely spicy drink: ginger, mint and pineapple juice. Yum! Very refreshing for a warm day.

At our cooking class (see the previous post), we learned three dishes: Moroccan salad (this does, contrary to how it sounds, involve cooking), chicken with lemon and olives, and pancakes with 1,000 holes. I think I will have the most success replicating the pancakes, but all three dishes were delicious, and since I have plenty of Moroccan shops in the neighborhood where I can get "authentic" ingredients, I think I'll give them a try.

Here, you see the early stages of chicken with lemon and olives:
For some reason, I figured that after the conference started, my culinary adventures would end. Oh how wrong I was...

One day, we arrived at the congress center to see these taped up:

Ah, of course, the dinner that the King ordered. Awesome. It started out slowly, with a pastilla big enough to fill us all completely. Fortunately, I did not know how much more food was coming, and ate a good amount of this. I say fortunately because it was really the best course in my book. Flaky pastry filled with sweet and cinnamon spiced chicken (not pigeon, they said):
Yum! But then, things started to get worrying. The next course arrived:

"Do you think that's a whole lamb?" one of the women at my table asked. No one could tell her for sure. It surely wasn't a small part of one... was it a half lamb? Who knows. What I do know is that we were sitting at a dinner for 2,600 people... so either way, a lot of lambs ended their lives for us.

Then, I was surely full. Which explains the next course:

How many chickens? Three? Four? For TEN people? I can't remember. The excess was alarming. After this, I could no longer take pictures. I was so full that I could barely move. Certainly I could not think. But, lest you be concerned that we still had not eaten enough, you will be happy to know that this was followed by:

• Couscous with vegetables and chicken
• Chocolate cake
• Fruit

Seriously? Insane. And we had another feast that nearly replicated this quantity on the last day of the conference. So, let's just say that they didn't let the conference participants go hungry!

All in all, I was a big fan of Moroccan cuisine, and hope to be able to make some soon in a kitchen near you.