The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert ‘To touch the past with one’s hands is realised only in dreams, and in Morocco the dream-feeling envelops one at every step.’ Edith Wharton Edith Wharton wrote those words more than ninety years ago. And fifty years ago, when I first set foot in Morocco, there could not have been a better description of what I felt. I came as a nineteen-year-old beatnik. I had read the amazing novels and stories of Paul Bowles set in Morocco – lingered over his fine renditions of labyrinthine medinas and inscrutable utterances, not to mention his frightening dramatisations of the mysteries and adventures that may befall the stranger round every corner. I had come to an exotic land in search of ‘The Other’. I was, I thought, prepared for almost anything. I soon discovered that it was I who was actually ‘the other’. And as I explored, made my way through the narrow streets of the medina of Tangier, it was not the kind of adventures described by Bowles that befell me, but something else I was not prepared for: the seductions of Moroccan cuisine. These seductions did not creep up on me slowly, but hit me square in the face almost at once. The sharp scent of cumin on the air. Passing by a community oven and catching the scent of anise and freshly baking bread. The street smells of grilling skewered meats. Whiffs of pungently spiced fried fresh sardines. The unique aroma of chickpea flour being slowly baked with olive oil and eggs to make a glistening flan in a wood fired oven. And at dusk, during the month of Ramadan, the surprise of watching as a voluptuous thick soup fragrantly seasoned with sweet spices was portioned out to people standing in line in the Grand Socco, the central marketplace, after the cannon in the Port of Tangier had been fired to mark the end of that day’s fast. Soon, at the homes of Moroccan friends, I tasted the more refined dishes: a pyramid of light, airy couscous topped with caramelised onions, raisins and almonds; a bastila – pastry stuffed with dark pigeon meat, eggs, spices and ground almonds and fried crisp; chickens prepared half a dozen different ways with preserved lemons and olives. The cuisine that was revealed changed my life. I became obsessed with learning everything I could about it. And the more deeply I explored, the more intensely I came to feel that this was the cuisine for me. The Food of Morocco is a distillation of everything I know about Moroccan cuisine, everything I have learnt about it during my fifty-year love affair with that country and its food. I have spent my professional life exploring the cuisines of the Mediterranean, and my fieldwork has taken me from Spain to Turkey, from France to Tunisia, and to almost every country and island in between. But always I have found myself coming back to Morocco, haunted by the tastes and aromas of the inimitable food that enveloped me through my early sojourns in Tangier.
Kefta Kefta is the savoury spiced minced meat (lamb or beef) of Morocco, served in meatball form or used as stuffing. In traditional Moroccan homes I’ve seen it chopped by hand with a heavy steel knife, then kneaded with the spices into a smooth paste. In Tangier my butcher usually added some minced lamb’s-tail fat to enhance the texture. At home in the US I use lean beef or lamb, then blend in a small amount of crème fraîche or grated fresh beef suet to create the right ‘mouthfeel’. Some Moroccan cooks add a beaten egg.