Saturday, February 27, 2021

Morocco

The Secret to Moroccan Cooking? It’s in the Pot

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By FRANKIE STILES

RABAT, Morocco – Authentic Moroccan cuisine begins and ends with one item: the tajine – a dish in which Moroccan meals are prepared, cooked and served.

“Any food you fancy, you [can] put it in [the] tajine,” said Chakib Benkhraba, 53, a Moroccan who now resides in London and has worked for several restaurants that cook with tajines.

Maybe more essential to a Moroccan home than the crockpot is to an American home, the tajine is also often found in Moroccan households, surrounded by a lively family like Benkhraba’s.

Olive growth provides a sustainable way forward in Morocco

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Olives are more than food for vendor Mohamed Filale – they are a way of earning a living. In 30 years of working at a fruit stand in Rabat, Filale has supported himself and his family by selling one of Morocco’s most popular foods.

“We live off of the olives,” he said.

This story is the same for numerous competing vendors lining the streets in Morocco’s “souks,” or markets. Olives are a staple in the Moroccan diet, and they are also one of the country’s most prominently exported items. But a serious problem looms: the World Bank projects water availability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region could drop by 50 percent per capita by 2050.

Cheese and Camaraderie in Rabat’s Old Medina

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By Zoe Hu

Photographs by Eloise Schieferdecker

RABAT, Morocco — They know when to expect him. Among the stuttering moped engines  and the rumbles of street-life in Rabat’s traditional medina, Abdelatif Reda’s customers wait.The small cart before them stands unmanned. Its owner, they speculate, must be out for his afternoon prayer. But Reda will return — as he has done for years, every day after 5 p.m. — to sell his homemade cheese.

Rabat’s medina is a pastel-washed huddle of squat shops and alleyways, fortified by walls that stand on 17th-century lines.

Reporter’s Notebook: Cracking shells, breaking barriers

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ESSAOUIRA, Morocco – We pushed into the red-plastered room 10 at a time, pens poised on paper and cameras clicking. We chattered and gawked, because what else can a group of almost forty people do but chatter and gawk?

“Come this way,” called the tour guide from somewhere in the crowd. I hung back, embarrassed by the commotion we were causing. This pattern of point-and-stare felt like window-shopping, and I craved real human interaction. I searched the faces below for forgiveness.

Forgiveness came in the form of a sky-blue glass eye.

Jazz-Moroccan Fusion Fills Chellah

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By HANNAH NORMAN

RABAT, Morocco – Sitting behind the ticket booth at the French Institute, 23-year-old Ilyas Drissi holds all the power. An open metal box contains the stubs of the 900 sold tickets, the quota for Saturday night’s pre-sales of Jazz au Chellah—a five-day music festival of jazz-Moroccan fusion located in Rabat’s Chellah Ruins.

“I’m sorry, we’re all sold out,” Drissi told a French couple who approached the table. “You’ll have to buy your tickets at the door.”

Currently on its nineteenth edition, the festival has become wildly popular, so much so that tickets steadily sold out for every night.

Hooked on Mint Tea

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By HANNAH NORMAN

RABAT, Morocco – The air is still cool, but the tea is hot. Morning has arrived, accompanied by the sun’s harsh rays penetrating through half-drawn kitchen curtains. The hissing of boiling water and the zestful aroma of fresh mint being rolled engulf the cooking alcove. In her household, the 52-year-old mother of three, Nezha Ben Ali, always has a bucket of green leafy stalks handy.

“When I don’t drink tea, I get headaches,” said Ben Ali, who has been hooked on tea since childhood.

Her consumption habits come as no surprise, considering the prevalence of mint tea, or “atay,”in Moroccan society.

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