My trip to Morocco was busy, busy, busy... I didn’t stay in the same hotel or camp for more than one night and spent lots of time traveling the country in a cramped van or bumpy jeep. I slept in the Sahara desert, I rode a camel named Zeus, I saw a couple of sunrises and many sunsets, I ate lots of tagine and I may have gotten a lot of people really sick.
Before even getting on the plane from Madrid to Morocco I was ready for the worst. I told myself I would return to Spain with dysentery or some other horrible food illness. Figuring that if I planned it ahead of time, I wouldn’t feel so bad spending a few days in the bathroom. There were over 30 of us venturing into Africa and I told every one of them about all the food I planned on eating, whether it was safe to eat or not.
Numerous times our guide Miguel told us to avoid all food not served in the restaurants or hotels we were eating in. He also told us to stay away from the tap water. Apparently, drinking faucet water in Morocco is the equivalent to giving your bowels shock therapy. Needless to say, I stuck to the bottled variety. Most of the food I ate was prepared in the planned eateries, but although tagine is great, it’s easy to get sick of after shoving it down at every meal.
Tangine is the name of both a cooking vessels and the dish cooked within it. It’s basically a big hodgepodge of meat, root veggies, spices and (hopefully) some raisins, dates and citrus. After my trip, I can rightfully say that not all tangines are created equal. They all look delicious, but many of them lack in the oomph department. Most of the places we ate prepared the dish very blandly. Sure there was braised chicken in there, a few tasty carrots, meaty potatoes and savory spices I’ve never heard of before, but the end result was…bland.
There was a predictable rhythm to the meals in Morocco--a light soup made from chickpeas, potatoes, eggs or a combination of the three, olives and bread, tangine and desert. While I thought the soup could have been really good if the cooks added a bit of punch to them, every soup I tried (and I sampled many) all had that blah flavor with a strong aftertaste of boring. Thankfully, the olives were usually AMAZING and the bread never failed to please. Some of the restaurants would serve us tasty little plates of eggplant, sweet braised carrots, potatoes or other delightful chomps before bringing out the tangine. Afterwards, there was always a juicy plate of oranges and bananas. I have no idea why we always had oranges and bananas, I guess the Berbers have figured out a way to make luscious, tropical fruits bloom in the middle of the Sahara.
After a few nights of disappointment I finally had my tangine taste buds satisfied. After boring soup, yummy olives and tasty bread, our server brought out the typical clay tangine and placed it on the center of the table. Hearing myself start to sigh and stopped once the waiter removed the lid. This tangine was the one! Chicken and sumptuous juices in the bottom, veggies piled on top and an array or raisins, dates and lemon buried throughout. It was oh so lovely. The stewed dried fruits really add a great touch to the savory meat and potato combination and the acidic lemons added the zest I was dying for. My mouth was happy.
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