Traditional Moroccan Cooking. Madame Guinaudeau

hot red pepper: felfla harra, from the region of Marrakesh.

      Sweet marjoram: mrdeddouch, perfumes the water in which snails are cooked.

      Sweet red pepper, pimento or paprika: felfla hlouwa.

      Thyme: zatr, abundant and scented in the mountains.

      Verbena: louiza, an infusion.

      Wild mint: fliou, peppermint.

      RAS EL HANOUT

      ‘The head’ or ‘the top’ of the shop is the name given to a synthesis of spices, rosebuds and cinnamon together with pimento and black pepper. The metallic glint of the cantharide is mingled with the grey stalks of ginger and more than two dozen spices are needed to complete the intoxicating aroma in which the nomad warrior has combined all the scents of the countries he has passed through.

      Ras el hanout is the spice used at Eid el Kebir, for mrouzia, for certain winter dishes which heat the blood and always in the cooking of game. And if it is used rather less nowadays, old men when feeling chilly in the winter still put it into majoun, a preparation which is supposed to warm them and restore virility.

      SPICES IN RAS EL HANOUT

      Cardamom: qaqulla, seeds from the ginger tree; from Malabar and Ceylon.

      Mace: bsiba, the outer layer of nutmeg; from Java and Sumatra.

      Gallingale: khdenjal, stalk of the ginger tree, cultivated and wild, from China and the Far East.

      Guinea pepper: gouza sahraouia, an aphrodisiac from the Ivory Coast.

      Nutmeg: gouza ettzab, from Sumatra and Java.

      Four spices: nouioura, pimento from the West Indies. Very different from other pimentos in spite of the name.

      Cantharides: debbal el hand or ‘Spanish fly’.

      Cinnamon: qarfou, the bark of the tree; from India, the Maldives and Ceylon.

      Cyparacée: tara soudania, a strong-smelling stalk from Sudan.

      Long pepper: dar felfla, fruit from the piper longum; from India and Malaya.

      Cloves: oud el nouar, the bud of the clove tree, from Zanzibar.

      Curcuma: orgoub, yellow root of the ginger tree; from India and other tropical countries.

      Ginger: sknjbir, the root of the ginger tree.

      Orris root: oud el amber, found in the high Atlas Mountains.

      Black pepper: elbezar, fruit of the pepper tree.

      Lavender: kzama.

      Rosebuds: rous el word, the rose of Damascus brought from Persia by the Arabs; cultivated in the Dades, Todra and Ferkla valleys.

      Ceylon cinnamon: dar el cini, the bark of the tree; from tropical Asia.

      Ash berries: lissan ettir, imported from Europe as an aphrodisiac.

      Belladonna berries: Zbibet el laidour, dried berries gathered in Chichouen. Very few are needed.

      Fennel flowers: habet el soudane, seeds cultivated in Morocco.

      Gouza el asnab.

      White ginger: finer than the grey variety; from Japan.

      Asclepiadic fruit: hilel abachi.

      Cubebe pepper: kabbaba, grey scented pepper from Malaya and Borneo.

      Monk’s pepper: kheroua, an aphrodisiac; from Morocco.

      OLIVES

      The hills surrounding Fez are covered with the grey green of olive trees. There is the festival of the olive harvest and the constant movement of vans on the road. The olive presses are at Bab Guissa, the gate leading north from the city, under the sour black heaps. The rancid smells of the souks. The dripping wooden jugs of the sahraoui donkey drivers. Restaurants offer their dishes of olives prepared with lemons. Vendors of fritters with their oily frying-pans. Food with an acid flavour that rasps the throat.

      In Fez they have begun to cook with purified olive oil or groundnut oil and seldom use rancid butter. Believe me that nothing is better for preparing a good tagine than real olive oil with its fruity taste, which is indispensable in all Moroccan cooking.

      When the moment comes for the inhabitants of Fez to take in their annual provisions it is traditional, in order to analyse the quality of the oil they have bought, to use a sample for a tagine with cardoons or maybe a nicely browned chicken. Tasting and sipping they will discover the degree of acidity and the olive’s subtle perfume.

      BLACK OLIVES

      The olives, when very ripe black and glistening, are rolled in rock salt in the proportion of two-thirds olives to one-third salt and put into a wicker basket with a heavy flat stone on top; a blackish water will emanate and the salt will penetrate to the fruit. At the end of two months the olives must be washed in clear water and put to dry on the terrace. They keep for a long time packed tightly in jars to avoid all contact with the air, and if dipped in oil may be preserved for many years.

      LEMONS PRESERVED IN SALT

      Utensils: an absolutely clean jar and a stone.

      4 lb ordinary lemons

      8 lb small thin or doqq lemons

      Put the lemons to soak in water, which must be changed every morning, for five days. At the end of this time divide each lemon in four, taking care that the quarters remain attached. Put a pinch of salt in the middle of each lemon, shut and reshape the fruit. Put the two sorts of lemons into the same jar and place a clean stone on the top. A month later they will be ready. At the end of a few days a juice as thick as honey, but salty, will ooze out and the lemons can be preserved in this indefinitely if kept in a dry place.

      You will find that they are used in a number of dishes – meat and vegetable tagines, chickens browned in butter. Pregnant women suck them all day long to give them an appetite.

      In salads the salty juice is used to advantage instead of vinegar.

      BREAD

      Every household in Fez kneads the bread necessary for its daily consumption. Very often, Fassis buy the wheat itself, which, picked over, washed and laid to dry on the terrace on a sunny day, is then carried to the mill. When ground it will be divided into four parts: the best flour, soft and pure; the white lhrama semolina for couscous; the coarse golden semolina from the bran; and finally the bran itself, food for the master’s mule. Nothing is wasted.