Moroccan Food Culture Basics
The wandering warren pathways of Moroccan medinas seem to be designed to keep people in. And it works. Nothing approaches a grid, and sometimes you find yourself by vendors you’ve definitely seen before.
While scrolling through the aisles, our guide stopped us at a stall making sardines pockets (in the video).
It turns out that Morocco is the world's largest exporter of sardines, making the little fish a street food staple. These sardines are typically coated in a light flour, fried until crisp and often served with a fried green chili inside a crispy bread stuffed with a spicy chermoula paste.
Sizzling hot right out of the pan, the dish was bursting in flavors of coriander, chili, garlic, paprika, cumin, olive oil and lemon juice. As as street food goes this is as raw, unfiltered, and delicious as it gets.
The Moroccan food culture reveals more than just food choices. Over and above WHAT they’re eating is HOW they eat it.
When you watch them eat, you notice the use of their hands to eat their food along with the bread. How they eat is not random, but actually part of a set of rules for their eating behavior. When you see them eat their food, you’re watching the outcome of centuries of food culture evolution.
For example, they use their bread as a fork, a spoon, and a mop. But look closer and you notice the regularity to it. In this video our guide demonstrates exactly how a Moroccans eat their food with their hands.
The food culture of Morocco is infused into their overall history. Sitting at the northwest corner of Africa, actually in sight Europe, put them in a pivotal position during the spice trades. This helped create the flavors of Moroccan food we enjoy today.
But what are those, actually? When you savor a tureen, you taste the delicious sum of the parts, but its hard to appreciate how the parts combine to create the whole.
So we asked our guide to break it down for us and it turns out that five critical spices form the base of all their recipes. There can be derivations on the theme, but watch the video for a quick tutorial.
